Idaho plans to bill MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for three audits the state carried out to disprove his false claims of election fraud.
Chief deputy secretary of state Chad Houck confirmed the office will bill the pillow magnate for about $6,500 in costs associated with auditing the three counties after Lindell falsely claimed that presidential election results in all 44 counties were electronically manipulated to change votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, reported the Idaho Statesman.
"Why not try and get Lindell to reimburse the state for having to refute his false claim?" Houck told the newspaper.
The former president easily won Idaho with 63.8 percent of the vote, but state officials audited Butte and Camas counties, which don't have voting machines, and Bonner County, which sometimes uses machines, to refute Lindell's claims.
"As we looked at how much exposure this particular set of data had gotten in the last several weeks, we felt it was reasonable to, at first, just look at the counties that had no electronic means," Houck said. "Our premise was, if we could get in and out of two of those counties in a day, and in a day disprove the theory of what was being alleged there, that would be a good use of time."
The secretary of state's office ended its Bonner County audit last weekend and found a 0.1 percent margin of error across all three counties, which officials said showed the election "was executed with both integrity and accuracy."
Houck said the state would pay for the audits through the federal Democracy Fund but would return the money to the government if Lindell pays the bill, and the chief deputy said the office would consider suing the pillow CEO if he refuses to pay.
"This allegation was patently without merit from the first look," Houck said. "It takes hard work to build confidence in a state's elections system, and careless accusations like this can cause tremendous harm. Doing nothing and saying nothing would have been like conceding its truth."
