After last week’s off-cycle elections, it’s time to do a wellness check on one of America’s most prominent promoters of voting conspiracy theories, My Pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell.
This won’t come as a shock to anyone familiar with Lindell’s oeuvre, but he was, once again, pretty disturbed by the democratic process.
In an email to his devotees that was filled with technical jargon and odd grammatical choices, Lindell claimed the internet somehow swayed elections all over the country.
“Although electronic voting machine companies have emphatically declared their machines are not online and do not contain Bluetooth modems- we have reports of Ballot printers going online with multiple tabulators tethered to the printing machines during Tuesday’s elections,” Lindell wrote, adding, “This is supposed to be impossible.”
The thoroughly discredited notion that algorithms and internet connectivity could be used to manipulate votes has long been a core part of Lindell’s schtick and the broader Big Lie mythos. Given that states use different election systems, many of which are hand recounted and not connected to the internet, it is a technical impossibility. Nevertheless, Lindell has persisted. As he made his latest shocking allegations, Lindell stopped short of providing any concrete evidence. Instead, Lindell insisted he’s actually withholding further proof because of unspecified dangers.
“For now, we are concealing critical details to protect election clerks from retaliation,” he explained.
Lindell delivered his fevered assessment of the vote in an email to supporters who signed up after his grand “election summit” in August. Since then, those Lindell fans have been treated to a relentless barrage of election conspiracies and promotional deals for bedding. At his event, Lindell debuted his “plan” to “secure elections” from a mysterious and malevolent cabal he dubbed “The Evil.” Lindell’s plan was a convoluted one involving drones and scanners that he dubbed “W.M.D.,” and vowed would expose the supposed internet connections. He also debuted social media site where people could share rumors and alleged evidence of malfeasance.
Thanks to all of Lindell’s planning, he doesn’t think last week’s elections were a total disaster. Lindell declared that his social media platform and “W.M.D.’s” were “wildly successful” in exposing “anomalies.” He dubbed it “a huge victory for the people.” Lindell also rattled off some of these supposed issues with the vote in the email. It was a mix of paranoia and already debunked claims. For example, in Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear was re-elected in a state with Republican legislative majorities, Lindell baselessly declared the result impossible without much elaboration.
“**Kentucky Governor election has an unbelievable outcome. So much so that all hands are on deck to fight the suspicious outcome,” Lindell wrote.
Lindell followed up his paranoia with a reference to discredited social media rumors that a “gas leak” that postponed voting for about a half an hour at a church in a largely Democratic county somehow affected the result. He did not explain how exactly it would have helped Beshear to have voting disrupted in a Democratic area.
The Kentucky conspiracy was a perfect example of how Lindell’s ongoing election paranoia is coming from a place beyond explanation or logic. In the email, he also cited debunked rumors about a voting machine error in Pennsylvania and suggested a power outage that delayed voters for an hour in Indiana was nefarious.
According to Lindell, he and his social network were addressing these claims that were not being reported in the “MSM.” He suggested that these various rumors were being censored and ignored. Of course, that’s not true at all. Several of them received widespread coverage and analysis.
After dropping the supposed truth bombs that failed to detonate, Lindell directed his readers to a link for an “Election Alert Feed” that would further detail “significant incidents.” Like so many of Lindell’s supposed blockbusters, the link didn’t work and literally went nowhere.
The litany of falsehoods and fever dreams in Lindell’s email ended as so many things do in the pro-Trump election conspiracy universe: He plugged his social media site and made a request for donations before signing off with a “God bless.”
