Lindell Sues Minnesota Officials After Refusing to Pay for Recount

MyPillow founder Mike Lindell has sued Minnesota's secretary of state and election officials, accusing them of changing the terms of a recount he had agreed to pay for in this month's Republican gubernatorial primary.

Lindell lost the Aug. 11 primary to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth by about 45,000 votes, finishing a distant second despite an endorsement from President Donald Trump. Last week he said he would pay $825,000 by Monday to fund a full hand recount and audit of the race. The deadline passed without payment.

Lindell told NBC News he refused to pay after learning the recount would focus only on ballots cast for him or Demuth, rather than every ballot cast among the seven Republican candidates.

"I paid this to have all of the votes counted, not just two people," he said. "I need to have a real recount, and I will fight this in court and get that real recount. I don't care if it costs triple. I didn't hold back anything. They did a bait-and-switch on me, and it's disgusting."

The secretary of state's office said it provided the contingent recount plan to Lindell after the State Canvassing Board approved it on Aug. 18, adding that the plan "follows state law and administrative rules on recount procedures and is consistent with previous recount plans."

Lindell's lawsuits, filed against the secretary of state's office and the State Canvassing Board, dispute the outlined recount process and seek to block any recount from proceeding under those parameters. Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, chairs the canvassing board.

Lindell, a longtime 2020 election denier, said his team found "irregularities" in the election data that he attributes to the use of electronic voting machines. Demuth is set to face Democratic nominee Amy Klobuchar in the general election.

Lindell has faced multiple lawsuits from voting machine companies over his 2020 fraud claims. In one defamation case, he now owes more in court fees than in sanctions after refusing to pay Smartmatic USA Corp., and he said last week he still does not plan to pay what the court says he owes. He was also found to have defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems employee in June 2025.