Could Wisconsin Strip Your Voting Rights for Using Prediction Markets?

**Renato Mariotti** (0:00)
Wisconsin is invoking an 1849 law that prohibits voters in its state from casting their ballot if they have made a bet or a wager on that election. And recently, there has been guidance from the commission in Wisconsin indicating that taking a position on a prediction market constitutes a bet or a wager for purposes of that state law, which means that people will be denied their right to vote potentially, which I know absolutely sounds crazy.

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**Renato Mariotti** (1:13)
Welcome to The Policy Protocol, your weekly espresso shot of the latest in crypto law and policy.
Everything that happened is still down to what actually matters. I'm Renato Mariotti. I'm here with, it's not my co-host, Rebecca Reddick. Here we've got Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs. Thank you for filling in, Ari.

**Ari Redbord** (1:34)
Renato, thank you so much for having me.
It's funny. First, I was intimidated because I was standing in for Rebecca, who is a stalwart. And then I heard Ryan Van Grak was your only other sort of guest host. We have Rachel with us on the show today. Anyway, a little intimidated, but super honored to be guest hosting with you today.

**Renato Mariotti** (1:55)
Well, look, I'm like Hawkeye and the Avengers. I'm just happy to be there. So happy to be included.
So look, we've got a lot to talk about Ari. I think the topic on everyone's minds right now is clarity. So, what are you tracking most when it comes to clarity right now?

**Ari Redbord** (2:13)
You know, look, you know, I think over the last couple of years, I've tried to carve out a pretty specific lane here for where I should be really engaging, and that is on the law enforcement front. And obviously, we've seen a lot of conversation around law enforcement over the last few weeks and really even beyond. I would say the latest draft of the bill even strengthens it further when it comes to law enforcement provisions. I mean, original drafts had language around Bank Secrecy Act, right? Like every crypto firm is now under the Bank Secrecy Act directly, real time information sharing. You know, we built this beacon network about a year ago in TRM. It's essentially codified within Clarity Today.
They talk about a hold law that will provide limited liability for exchanges that are holding funds for law enforcement process. And then this latest draft for the first time, this is something I'm really proud and excited about. Every conversation I've been in on Capitol Hill the last few years, I talk about one word, it's reissue. And that is we need to ensure that stable coin issuers are not just burning, freezing, working with law enforcement to seize funds, but also reissuing those funds to victims. And for the first time ever in any legislation, the recent draft of Clarity has the words burn and reissue tokens to ensure that funds are getting back to victims. So that's what I'm really, really excited about. There's, we've been talking about these cyber letters of Mark, great people like Chris Perkins and Christian Carlo. There's a provision now in Clarity on empowering the private sector to go after bad actors, almost sort of the privateering that was happening in the early 1800s. So there's so much strength around law enforcement in this bill, that that's the stuff I'm most focused on and trying to crank that there as much as possible.
But I think this is a 600 plus page bill at this point, with hundreds of pages dedicated to law enforcement provisions.
At this point, I'm like, hey, let's vote this thing up, and ensure the right tools, the right training, the right capabilities are in the hands of law enforcement to go after bad actors. I know you are following, I think, the politics of this thing a lot more closely. Why don't you give us sort of a little take on where we are as we sit here right now when it comes to the politics of clarity?

**Renato Mariotti** (4:31)
Yeah, I mean, look, what I'm hearing is not encouraging, Ari. I'm hearing that there's five to six Republican votes that aren't there. There's obviously Democratic votes that aren't there.