Mike Lindell says he will pay for a full recount of the Minnesota Republican primary for governor. He lost the race to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth by about 11 points.
Lindell made the announcement on Wednesday. He said he wants every paper ballot in the state counted by hand and checked.
The recount could cost about $825,000. Lindell says he will pay the cost himself. Minnesota law allows a candidate to seek a full recount even when the result is not close enough for a state-funded recount.
The move adds to Lindell’s efforts to challenge the result of the Aug. 11 Republican primary. Demuth won the contest and will face Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the Nov. 3 general election.
Lindell did not concede after the vote. He said there were problems in the election data. His campaign has also pointed to what it calls irregularities in electronic vote reports.
The 11-point gap is far larger than the 0.25% margin needed for an automatic state-funded recount. Because of the size of the loss, Lindell must request the recount and pay for it.
A letter from the Minnesota secretary of state’s office estimated that a full recount of the governor and lieutenant governor races would cost about $825,000. Lindell has until Aug. 24 to submit his request and payment, according to the reported state estimate.
Lindell said the recount is about more than his own race. He has long argued against the use of electronic voting machines. He has promoted hand counting as a way to check election results.
He has also claimed that voting machines can be hacked. Those claims have not been supported by evidence. Election officials and courts have repeatedly rejected claims that machines changed the result of the 2020 US presidential election.
Lindell became one of the best-known supporters of former President Donald Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 election result. Trump backed Lindell in the Minnesota governor primary.
Despite that support, Demuth won the Republican race by a wide margin. Her victory ended Lindell’s bid to become the party’s candidate for governor.
The recount plan is now Lindell’s latest effort to question the result.
Lindell has said he wants to use the recount to examine every paper ballot. His campaign says the review could also help push Minnesota away from electronic ballot counting.
The proposed recount would not mean that the election result was found to be wrong. It would only provide another count of the ballots. Any change in the result would depend on what the recount finds.
Lindell has faced legal problems over his past election claims. In June, Liberty Vote, the company formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems, ended a $1.3 billion defamation case against him. The two sides agreed to a confidential settlement.
Dominion had sued Lindell in 2021. The company said he spread false claims that its voting systems were used to steal the 2020 election from Trump. The case continued for years before the company agreed to drop it.
Lindell celebrated the end of that case as a victory. He has continued to question electronic voting systems.
His latest recount effort is likely to draw close attention in Minnesota. The state has already certified Demuth as the Republican winner.
For now, Lindell must complete the formal process before the recount can begin. He also must provide the required payment or security for the estimated cost.
If the recount goes ahead, election officials will recount the paper ballots from the Republican governor primary. The process could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Demuth remains the Republican nominee unless the recount changes the certified result through the legal process. She is set to face Klobuchar in November.
Lindell’s challenge is unlikely to change the wider race unless the recount finds a major error. His loss was more than 45,000 votes, making it far outside the normal range for a close recount.
The case will also test how far a losing candidate can use Minnesota’s recount rules to examine a statewide election. For Lindell, it is another step in his long campaign against electronic voting and in his continued challenge to election results he does not accept.
