Idaho wants MyPillow CEO to pay for costs to refute his false election fraud claim

After MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell falsely claimed election fraud occurred in Idaho, Secretary of State officials audited three counties to disprove that claim. Now, the state plans to send Lindell a bill.

Idaho Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck confirmed to the Idaho Statesman that the office plans to bill the CEO for the costs associated with auditing the three counties, a total estimated at about $6,500. Houck announced the bill on CNN on Thursday.

In Idaho, former President Donald Trump handily won in the 2020 presidential election with 63.8% of the votes. But Lindell, in a widely circulated document titled “The Big Lie,” alleged that presidential election results in all 44 Idaho counties were electronically manipulated to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

Seven Idaho counties have no electronic means to count votes, Houck said.

Houck said the suggestion to bill Lindell came from a citizen, and that totaling the expenses and sending the bill will likely take at least another two weeks.

“Why not try and get Lindell to reimburse the state for having to refute his false claim?” Houck told the Statesman on Thursday.

The Secretary of State audited Butte and Camas counties, which don’t have machines and aren’t able to tally votes electronically. Houck said the idea was to find counties that were “low-hanging fruit” to refute the false claim after officials noticed how much exposure Lindell’s claim received.

Bonner County, which sometimes uses machine counts for votes, was later added upon request from Bonner County Clerk Michael Rosedale, Houck said.

“As we looked at how much exposure this particular set of data had gotten in the last several weeks, we felt it was reasonable to, at first, just look at the counties that had no electronic means,” Houck said. “Our premise was, if we could get in and out of two of those counties in a day, and in a day disprove the theory of what was being alleged there, that would be a good use of time.”

The office wrapped up its Bonner County audit Saturday and reported a 0.1% margin of error across all three counties, concluding that the election “was executed with both integrity and accuracy.”

Houck said the audits would be paid for through the federal Democracy Fund, but that money could be returned to the government for other uses if Lindell pays.

When asked about a potential lawsuit, Houck said the office is “looking into” next steps if Lindell doesn’t pay the bill.

“While our team is always looking for possible vulnerabilities, this allegation was patently without merit from the first look,” Houck said in a statement Wednesday. “It takes hard work to build confidence in a state’s elections system, and careless accusations like this can cause tremendous harm. Doing nothing and saying nothing would have been like conceding its truth.”