When Kristi Noem’s close personal friend and pillow salesman Mike Lindell hosted an election-denial festival in Sioux Falls in August 2021, he offered $5 million to anyone who could prove bogus the data he was using to support his claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Cyber experts pounced at the opportunity to defend truth and democracy and make a quick buck doing so, and a Minnesota arbitration panel has ordered Lindell to pay up:
An arbitration panel awarded Robert Zeidman, who has decades in software development experience, a $5 million payout on Wednesday after he sued Lindell over the sum.
…“Based on the foregoing analysis, Mr. Zeidman performed under the contract,” the arbitration panel wrote in its decision. “He proved the data Lindell LLC provided, and represented reflected information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data. Failure to pay Mr. Zeidman the $5 million prized was a breach of the contract, entitling him to recover.”
…“The lawsuit and verdict mark another important moment in the ongoing proof that the 2020 election was legal and valid, and the role of cybersecurity in ensuring that integrity,” said Brian Glasser, founder of Bailey & Glasser, LLP, who represented Zeidman. “Lindell’s claim to have 2020 election data has been definitively disproved” [Sara Murray, “My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell Ordered to Follow Through with $5 Million Payment to Expert Who Debunked His False Election Data,” CNN, 2023.04.20].
This newly enriched patriot just happens to be a conservative Republican:
Zeidman told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront” Thursday he was relieved by the judgment, adding that he sued not for the money, but to disprove election lies.
“I have some friends who I hope will still be friends because I am a conservative Republican,” Zeidman said. “But I thought the truth needed to come out.”
…“Normally data analysis could take weeks or months and I had three days,” Zeidman told CNN. “But the data was so obviously fake that I spent a few hours before I could show it was fake” [Murray, 2023.04.20].
KELO-TV’s Eric Mayer notes that Lindell’s 2021 fib-fest helped mobilize a South Dakota election-deniers group, which now is trying to dissociate itself from its dishonest beginnings:
In South Dakota, Lindell’s Cyber Symposium sparked the creation of the South Dakota Canvassing Group. That group has had members testify about election fraud in South Dakota at numerous state and county meetings. The group also played a role in the Tripp County decision to hand count ballots for the 2022 election.
During the 2023 Legislative Session, members of the group testified on numerous bills related to South Dakota’s elections. In a Feb. 15 Senate State Affairs Committee, Republican Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, the Senate President Pro Tempore, called the South Dakota Canvassing Group’s election concerns “some kind of an obsession or fetish.”
In a statement to KELOLAND News, Mike Mathis with the South Dakota Canvassing Group said Lindell’s Cyber Symposium just happened to be hosted in Sioux Falls around the same time the group formed.
“The purpose and goals of the group were not to overturn the election or get Trump back into office, as some have claimed, but rather to simply find out about South Dakota elections and what we could improve on,” Mathis said [Eric Mayer, “Nevada Man Wins $5 Million from Mike Lindell’s Sioux Falls Event,” KELO-TV, 2023.04.20].
It’s too bad we can’t make the South Dakota Canvassing Group pay $5 million for their unpatriotic lies. But at least we have this $5 million judgment to demonstrate that their guy Mike Lindell is full of baloney.
This fraudulent lie, and those from the former candidate, and those that permeated the last South Dakota primary and general elections – shows the necessity of South Dakota having open primaries – to buttress the extremes in the regressive party. Monae Johnson has no business holding a constitutional office. Several state legislators also have no business being in government. The collective body of SD county auditors correctly note that the legislatures anti-voting measures were a solution in search of a problem. Restated, pandering to the extremists.
The Minnehaha County GOP is hosting election swindler David Clements from New Mexico. Scary stuff.
The MAGA crowd want to believe – oh, so desperately! – that there is massive voter fraud everywhere. Except they liked everyone who got elected in South Dakota. How does that work? Answer: it doesn’t.
But they’ll cling to massive voter fraud, despite endless recounts that proved there wasn’t any, because the only thing that satisfies the soul is a really good grievance…
At least he’ll sleep well.
This is another suspicious artifact adding to the argument to test the drinking water we are all exposed to everyday for levels of forever chemicals and gnarly suspended solids. Who knows? 2001 is a long time ago since some tests were done. https://danr.sd.gov/OfficeOfWater/SurfaceWaterQuality/waterqualitystandards/fishflesh.aspx Maybe toxic fluoridation is diminishing our critical thinking and turning people into no-mind zombies. Sounds looney tunes but it still needs to be ruled out. It is too difficult to accept people are that low-frequency.
The pillow guy has developed a new product “My Pillow 2” which cools the head and stifles the mind as you sleep. H’s running an ad campaign now and surely will recoup the 5 million from his loyal and brain dead customers. I don’t blame water pollution, though that’s an interesting notion, for the fetish among Republicans to rerun all elections. I blame My Pillow.