Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!

There’s a lot to discuss this week, but first a little check-in with our favorite pillow maven-turned-election conspiracy theorist, and now also a Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate (ugh, yes, this is still happening), Mike Lindell. 

Lindell was held in contempt of court late last month by a Trump-appointed federal judge for not paying over $50,000 in sanctions to Smartmatic related to Lindell’s “frivolous” lawsuit against the voting machine company. The court has ordered Lindell to pay Smartmatic additional fees if he fails to comply.  

I asked Lindell about this and how the order might impact his gubernatorial run. He had a lot to say, mostly focused on his ongoing fight against voting machines and the supposedly stolen 2020 election. 

“I will not back down at all,” he told me. “We’re still going all the way to court. These will end up in trial years from now. It’s still not to trial. I’m taking it all the way to jury trial because we have to save our country.”

We really must give the man credit for his undying devotion to the Big Lie.

If the election system is so unsafe, how do you expect to run for governor and trust the results of the election, I asked him. I never got a solid answer to this one, unfortunately.

Here’s what he did say, though. 

“The people know that I’ve been out there, that I’m fighting to save our country … and like I say, I’ve had more problems with Republicans blocking me than Democrats, for sure. All the people want secure elections.” 

“The fraud’s really a blessing in Minnesota because now we can get stuff opened up and, and show the…Minnesota’s kind of the tip of the spear with all the fraud in our welfare programs,” he concluded, incoherently nodding at a current right-wing fixation with social services fraud in Minnesota that is being investigated but also used as a justification for President Trump’s lethal immigration enforcement and suspension of federal funding there. 

Anyway, that’s all from Lindell for now… 

There’s a lot more to unpack. Let’s dive in. 

An Election Denier is Trying to Run the Show in Arizona

GOP Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, who is an election denier running for attorney general, is asking the Justice Department to investigate the person whose job he wants, Attorney General Kris Mayes, as well as Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats. He claims they should be investigated for obstruction of justice and witness tampering related to the DOJ’s investigation into 2020 election records.

Let’s back up a little bit first. 

In March, the Trump administration expanded its supposed 2020 election probe to Maricopa County, Arizona, which has been a hotbed for election conspiracy theories for years now due to the size of the county and the fact that it is purple. 

Following the 2020 election, Arizona state Senate Republicans initiated a very obviously partisan “audit” of the 2.1 million ballots cast and the 400 voting machines used in Maricopa County. The “audit” was very much not an audit, but a partisan election review that election deniers insisted on, even though the state had conducted several official audits that found no evidence of fraud.

The administration is now looking into records from this “audit” — as all of Trump’s cronies in his administration look for ways to examine his delusion that the 2020 election was stolen from him. 

Petersen had no issue complying with the subpoena last month. 

After the state Senate received the subpoena, Mayes and Fontes sprinted to send out letters,  warning county recorders to not hand over sensitive data to the DOJ as part of this 2020 election probe.  

Mayes also sent a letter to Petersen at the time, asking him if he had handed over voter registration information to the DOJ that is “not generally available for public inspection,” according to the Arizona Mirror. 

Petersen, of course, had an issue with all of this, and is now asking for federal prosecutors to investigate Mayes and Fontes for not complying with the federal grand jury subpoena. It’s absurd on its face because Petersen is trying to unseat Mayes for attorney general, so there are clearly some other motives involved here!

“The threats of the Attorney General and Secretary of State are incompatible with the United States Constitution, which enshrines the grand jury in our constitutional order, and only serve to hinder voters’ confidence in our elections. Instead of fighting over these issues, we should all be working together to ensure the election integrity necessary to realize our country’s democratic promise,” Petersen wrote in an April 7 letter. “The Attorney General and Secretary’s phobia of fair and secure elections is impossible to explain absent nefarious motives.”

Mayes, in response to Petersen, issued a statement of her own that same day, railing against the years-old “audit”  and pointing out that Petersen is simply caving to Trump’s will. 

“After wasting taxpayer dollars on the laughable Cyber Ninja’s audit, Petersen again wasted Arizona’s taxpayer dollar on a legal opinion that painstakingly tries to justify his failure to uphold Arizona’s constitutional right to protect its voters’ privacy,” she wrote. “This is yet another example of Petersen desperately seeking favor from a president who cannot accept that he lost his re-election in 2020 fair and square. Arizonans will not be fooled.”

Another Update in the DOGE Voter Data Agreement Saga

We have some updates in the ongoing DOGE Social Security Administration voter data pact saga.

For a quick refresher: in January the DOJ admitted that in a March 2025 court filing that two members of the DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration signed a pact with an “advocacy group” to use Social Security data as a way to find voter fraud to overturn election results in specific states.

The legal nonprofit organization Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit against the Social Security Administration last month to get the agency to turn over records related to this apparent pact for sensitive voter data. 

Last week, a federal appeals court called the details of the case “alarming” and said there are “even more alarming” developments in the case that a lower court must examine.

“The government’s recent acknowledgments are alarming and raise serious questions about its earlier conduct before the district court,” the appeals court order read. 

Only days later on Tuesday, per Democracy Docket, a federal judge ordered discovery in the case, meaning that the SSA and DOGE could be mandated to turn over records and we might actually get some more clarity on what happened here. 

So, stay tuned for more. 

Around the States: The Latest in State-Level Proof of Citizenship Bills

While the SAVE America Act languishes in the Senate and Republicans in both chambers try to figure out they might potentially stuff provisions of the SAVE Act into an unrelated potential reconciliation package (they likely won’t be able to get away with this), red states around the country are attempting to pass their own versions of disenfranchising proof of citizenship bills. Here’s the latest: 

Florida

Earlier this month, GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Florida SAVE Act into law. The bill requires voters to provide proof of citizenship as part of the basic registration process.

Kansas

Last week, the Republican-controlled Kansas state legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of The SAVE Kansas Act, which is also modeled after the SAVE America Act.  

Kelly has said that the bill would “suppress civic engagement and make it harder for Kansans to vote.”

Mississippi

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed The Mississippi SHIELD Act into law earlier this month. The law, also modeled after the SAVE America Act, mandates that election officials check citizenship status of voters using the federal SAVE system run out of the Department of Homeland Security.

In Other Election News

Washington Post: A GOP-aligned group is using Klan imagery to target Black voters

ProPublica: Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections 

AP: Gov. Wes Moore falls short in push to redraw Maryland’s congressional map to boost Democrats

Politico: ‘It would be catastrophic’: A Supreme Court decision could upend Alaska’s crucial Senate race