Mike Lindell, a Republican candidate for Minnesota governor, speaks during a forum of gubernatorial candidates at Farmfest, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026, in Morgan, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt).
Anti-voting-machine salesman and leading election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell won’t admit defeat in Minnesota, but he wouldn’t pay a hefty fee for a recount either — so he’s taking his grievances over the Republican gubernatorial primary to state court.
Law&Crime has obtained a notice of contest and petition filed by Lindell and his running mate, aspiring lieutenant governor Phillip C. Parrish, against declared winners Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth and Ryan Wilson, an attorney who seized the opportunity to “send Tim Walz into retirement.”
The repeatedly sued MyPillow founder lost the Aug. 11 contest by 45,000 votes, but nonetheless vowed to pay the $825,000 required for a recount.
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But the deadline passed without payment as Lindell reportedly protested that only votes for him and Demuth would be the focus of a recount — without reference to the vote for “all other candidates.”
Thus, Lindell and Parrish are suing in Ramsey County District Court, requesting the assignment of a three-judge panel, and demanding an order for the “immediate preservation of all ballots, absentee signature and secrecy envelopes, applications, rosters, vouching lists, Election Day registration applications, precinct summary statements, results files, ERS upload logs, and access logs[.]”
According to the notice of contest, “irregularities and violations, separately and together, are serious and material” enough to question the reliability of calling the race for Demuth and Wilson.
The Lindell petition that followed on Aug. 21 called for the “inspection of the ballots,” as the “case cannot properly be prepared for trial without” such an inspection.
“Inspection is also required to compare accepted and rejected absentee envelopes with official lists, and to recanvass votes in precincts affected by results-file replacements, uncertified equipment configuration, Election Day registration and vouching, and participation anomalies,” Lindell claimed, requesting “a written report by precinct, identifying disputed ballots.”
Lindell recently failed to convince a federal judge to reconsider his findings that the pillow mogul defamed Smartmatic.
While the defendant claimed a “CIA report” since released by the Trump White House helped his cause, that same report noted “neither Smartmatic nor the Venezuelan Government had the capability … to manipulate the outcome of an election outside of Venezuela in a predictable fashion,” and described the company’s lone 2020 presence in Los Angeles County as a “small footprint in the domestic election picture.” There, former President Joe Biden won 71.04% of the vote.
“The alleged contents of the declassified CIA report do not create genuine issues of material fact regarding the mathematical impossibility of Smartmatic voting machines in Los Angeles County changing the outcome of the Election or regarding the other conclusions reached by the Court,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan noted.
The post MyPillow guy contends ‘anomalies’ and ‘irregularities’ provide ‘serious’ legal basis to force ‘inspection of the ballots’ in Minnesota first appeared on Law & Crime.
