Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and Trump supporter, has offered to personally fund a recount and audit of all paper ballots cast in Minnesota's Republican gubernatorial primary. Lindell lost the primary last week to Minnesota House speaker Lisa Demuth by approximately 11 percentage points.
Lindell's announcement on Wednesday follows his refusal to concede the primary results. He stated that a Minnesota law allows candidates to seek a complete hand count, even when results are outside the margin for a state-funded recount.
The margin of defeat, roughly 11 percentage points, is significantly wider than the 0.25% threshold that would trigger an automatic state-funded recount. Consequently, Lindell would need to formally request and cover the cost of the recount himself.
The Minnesota secretary of state general counsel, Lauren Bethke, estimated in a letter to Lindell that a full recount of the governor and lieutenant governor races would cost around $825,000. Lindell reportedly has until Monday, 24 August, to submit both the request and payment to the secretary of state's office.