St. Paul, Minnesota — MyPillow founder Mike Lindell has withheld the $825,000 payment required for the statewide recount he requested after losing Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary by more than 45,000 votes.
Lindell’s campaign said Monday that it objected to the recount procedure established by Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office. Under those rules, election officials would determine votes for Lindell and primary winner Lisa Demuth while placing ballots cast for the other five GOP candidates into an “other” category.
Lindell argues that all seven candidates’ totals must be separately examined because his campaign claims to have identified anomalies affecting the entire field. His campaign said it plans to seek an emergency court order rather than submit payment by Monday’s deadline.
Minnesota’s official recount guidance says ballots are sorted into piles for each candidate involved in the recount, with votes for other candidates grouped separately. State law limits recounts to determining the number of votes validly cast for the office being contested.
Demuth received 179,683 votes to Lindell’s 134,282, a margin far beyond the threshold for a taxpayer-funded recount. Lindell therefore must finance any discretionary recount himself.
Lindell has not conceded and continues to allege election irregularities, but state officials have presented no evidence that the primary result was inaccurate.
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