This article has been updated with additional reporting.
Pillow magnate and election denier Mike Lindell, the Trump-endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, who was reportedly not registered to vote in Minnesota has since provided evidence to TPM that appears to show that he is now registered to vote in the state. Lindell previously disputed reports that he was not registered, telling TPM it’s “fake news.”
On Wednesday, Lindell provided TPM with a screenshot of a Minnesota Secretary of State’s office webpage that appears to confirm he is now registered to vote in the state.
TPM shared the screenshot with the Secretary of State’s office to confirm its authenticity. Although the Secretary of State’s office will not confirm an individual’s registration status, a spokesperson did say that the screenshot looked authentic.
As the Minnesota Star Tribune reported Friday, Lindell has an active voter registration in Texas. The Star Tribune published another story late Wednesday confirming that Lindell is now registered to vote in Minnesota. Lindell confirmed in a Tuesday interview with TPM that he has “places in both Texas and Minnesota” and that he moved to Texas in 2024 after he got married. He moved back to Minnesota in 2025, he said, to begin his gubernatorial run.
The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office told the Star Tribune last week that Lindell “does not have an active record” in Minnesota.
“So what the media did, the Star Tribune, whatever they’re saying that I wasn’t registered or didn’t register, are wrong,” Lindell told TPM.
It’s not clear when Lindell’s Minnesota registration became active. Lindell told TPM in a text message on Wednesday that he was “registered last September.”
“No one knows why it wasn’t showing when Star Tribune did their story,” he told TPM.
Lindell provided TPM with a screenshot of his registration Wednesday, after the original version of this story was published on Tuesday. For the original story Lindell shared a photo of his temporary license that he said he received in September 2025. (The license that he shared with TPM via text message had a September 19, 2025 application date and a Jan. 17, 2026 expiration date.)
“This was to register to vote and to get your driver’s license,” he said. “Both of them are done at the same time in Minnesota.”
In 2023, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed into law a Democratic-led measure approving automatic voter registration, among other election changes. Minnesota is one of 24 states that has automatic voter registration, which means that eligible voters who interact with certain agencies, like the Department of Motor Vehicles, are automatically registered to vote, unless they actively opt out.
Lindell also told TPM that he is no longer registered to vote in Texas. Texas’ Secretary of State office did not immediately respond to TPM’s attempts to try to confirm this claim from Lindell.
“There’s no system all of a sudden in Texas where you last voted, where you get taken off those voter rolls, because all these states are doing it with computers and re-upping everybody,” he said.
“If a person would move three times, you’d probably be in three different states,” he added. “But obviously, if you vote in more than one place, it’s illegal. But, you know, this is what I’ve been telling you guys. We’ve been fighting these computers for years.”
A spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office told TPM that if a person has a temporary driver’s license in the state, they might, in fact, be eligible for automatic voter registration.
“If someone has that [a temporary license], then I must assume they have successfully applied for a driver’s license in state,” a spokesperson for the Minnesota Secretary of State said. “If when they did that, they showed citizenship affirming documentation, as I said, like a U.S. passport or birth certificate, then they would go into the queue for automatic voter registration.”
Lindell said that if there was an issue with his registration, he would take advantage of Minnesota’s same-day voter registration allowance and cast a ballot for himself.
Election deniers like Lindell have largely criticized states with automatic voter registration.
“You can register same-day here in Minnesota,” he said. “So if there is a problem at the state level, I can still register the day that I vote, and obviously I’m going to vote for myself.”
So frustrated with the clowns in MN. I grew up in Bachmann’s (Now Emmer’s) district.
I think I see the problem right there. If he had brought one of those documents and registered to vote, surely he would be on the voter database that the Star Tribune consulted. The database would reflect changes made in September 2025.
The damn slip-of-paper expired in January. (Is he still using drugs or believes everyone else is?)
And that would explain why it was a “temporary” DL, that expired a few months later. Kind of like a provisional ballot. Have to do something more to make it complete
He’s right. We have same-day registration in MN.
But you have to have proof of residency. If his DL is expired, no es bueno.