MyPillow CEO alleged vote fraud. Idaho elections office investigated. This is the result
The CEO of MyPillow’s voter fraud claims have been disproved once again. This time in Idaho.
After conducting recounts in Butte and Camas counties, the Idaho Secretary of State’s office said this week that Idaho’s 2020 presidential election results were accurate.
The recounts were in response to a post by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell titled “The Big Lie.” It alleged that results were manipulated electronically in each of Idaho’s 44 counties. He claimed that some votes for Donald Trump were reassigned to Joe Biden.
To state officials, Lindell’s facts felt fluffy from the start: At least seven counties in Idaho don’t count ballots electronically, Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said in a news release.
But state elections officials took the allegations seriously enough to test them by recounting ballots in two small counties where they thought manual ballot inspections could be accomplished easily and Lindell’s allegations proved or disproved quickly. Camas County, the home of Fairfield, is about 75 miles east of Boise, and Butte County, the home of Arco, is about 150 miles east.
Investigating information is common for the Secretary of State’s office, Houck said.
“You can never assess the credibility of a claim without looking at it,” Houck said.
Nonetheless, the lack of electronic balloting in several Idaho counties was an “immediate red flag” that the allegations weren’t true, Houck said.
“We also felt (the allegations) would be very easy to disprove,” Houck said. “By disproving even a handful of lines on that sheet, we could have confidence the rest of the components of that sheet were likewise fabrications.”
Last week’s recount showed 188 votes for Biden in Butte County, the exact number expected. Trump received 1,193 votes in the recount compared with 1,202 originally.
Nine fewer Butte County ballots were counted overall than when the election took place, but the 0.63% margin of error “was likely attributed to the thermal printed ballots that come from assisted voter terminals, which are the same size as the absentee envelopes contained in the same storage boxes,” the news release said. “As such, adjusted sorting and storage policies were recommended should a recount occur in the future.”
In Camas County, the votes for each candidate except Trump were the same both times they were counted. The only disparity came from counting 508 for Trump this time compared with 507 in November.
The mistake resulted in a 0.14% error rate that didn’t affect the outcome and was far less than the alleged 54-vote difference. Biden received 149 votes both times the ballots were counted.
The office announced the results of the recount in a news release. The recounts yielded a less than 1% disparity between the original tallies and the recounts, which didn’t affect the results of the November 2020 election.
Not that the outcome would have changed even if Lindell’s accusation had proved correct. Idaho voted overwhelmingly for Trump. He received 554,119 (63.8%) votes in Idaho in the 2020 election compared with Biden’s 287,021 (33.1%).
“In the election space, you always strive for perfection,” Houck said, “but given that you’re operating a system with a significant number of part-time poll workers, it’s very near impossible to achieve perfection. You always strive for it.”
The recount effort cost about $2,500, because a team of people flew to Arco and Fairfield to complete the checks in one day, Houck told the Statesman. The money came from federal grant funds set aside for potential audits.
RECOUNT PLANNED IN BONNER COUNTY
On Saturday, a team from the Secretary of State’s office will do a third recount: in North Idaho’s Bonner County, where Lindell claims a difference of 2,244 votes. Houck said officials will review fewer than 10 of the 32 precincts and use that sample to determine if the results were accurate.
Bonner County Clerk Michael Rosedale requested the review.
“If I have something wrong, I want to know about it,” Rosedale said in the news release. “If I don’t, I want that exposed too.”
The Idaho Democratic Party and the Bonner County Democrats issued a statement Thursday saying they would decline from participating in the recount, citing COVID-19 concerns and already established confidence in the election process.
The live video feed for Saturday’s recount will be available starting at 8 a.m. Information at Voteidaho.gov explains the counting process.
“Do we believe there’s integrity in Idaho’s elections? Absolutely,” Houck said.
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 6:58 PM with the headline "MyPillow CEO alleged vote fraud. Idaho elections office investigated. This is the result."
