Mike Lindell did not submit the $825,000 required to trigger a recount of the Republican gubernatorial primary in Minnesota, letting Secretary of State Steve Simon's office's Monday deadline pass without payment. Lindell's campaign said the money was ready but disputed the planned scope of the recount.
Lindell announced Monday he will seek a temporary restraining order against Simon's office, asking a court to halt the payment deadline until a judge rules on whether the state's recount plan conforms with Minnesota law.
The dispute centers on which ballots get recounted. State officials, acting under a contingency plan approved by the State Canvassing Board on Aug. 18, intend to recount only the votes cast for Lindell and Demuth—the top two finishers—and not every vote cast in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Lindell's campaign argues that approach violates a Minnesota statute defining a recount as determining "the number of votes validly cast for the office or question to be recounted," which his team reads as requiring a full tally of all candidates in the race.
Cassondra Knudson, a spokesperson for Simon, pushed back directly. "Our office provided the contingent recount plan to Mr. Lindell after it was approved by the State Canvassing Board on August 18," Knudson said. "The plan follows state law and administrative rules on recount procedures, and is consistent with plans of its kind for the past two decades."
The numbers behind the dispute show a gap of roughly 45,000 votes. Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth drew 179,683 votes in the Aug. 11 primary. Lindell received 134,282. Demuth is the current leader and, under the official results, the Republican nominee pending the outcome of any recount challenge.
Under the state's contingency plan, Paul Linnell, the Secretary of State's director of elections, would oversee the statewide hand recount. Linnell would have authority to appoint deputy and assistant deputy officials to manage counting sites across Minnesota. The plan specifies the recount would be open to the public and press.
Minnesota law sets a firm timeline for recount requests. An apparent losing candidate must file both the formal request and the full cost payment within five days of the canvass of a primary election. Lindell's campaign acknowledged that deadline but argued the state's last-minute change to the recount's scope put the campaign in an impossible position—pay under terms they consider unlawful, or miss the deadline and lose the right to a recount entirely.
Lindell's campaign described the situation in a statement as placing the candidate in "an untenable position," saying state officials altered the rules after the election. The state's position is that no rules changed: the contingency plan approved Aug. 18 mirrors how Minnesota has conducted similar recounts for 20 years.
On primary night, Aug. 11, Lindell told reporters he would not concede until every vote had been counted and said his team had identified "anomalies" that required review. He provided no supporting evidence. No official body has found fraud or irregularity in the primary results.
Lindell said publicly on Aug. 13 that he would personally finance the recount, setting up the sequence that led to Monday's standoff over the payment. The restraining order filing shifts the dispute from the Secretary of State's office to the courts, where a judge must rule on whether the state's recount scope is lawful before the payment question can be resolved.
The Republican nominee who emerges from this race will face the Democratic candidate in the general election for Minnesota governor.
