‘Smooth move Mr Lindell’: Idaho official blasts MyPillow guy after state recount shows fewer votes for Trump

A furious election official in Idaho says Mike Lindell’s efforts to “tarnish” votes in his county by falsely alleging widespread voter fraud should “make your blood boil”.

Several counties in Idaho have been conducting hand recounts after Mr Lindell alleged that 35,000 votes had been switched from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election through “electronic manipulation”.

In a scathing statement, Bonner County Clerk Mike Rosedale said claims of voter machine hacking “completely miss the mark” as none of the state’s voting machines were connected to the internet.

Mr Rosedale added it was “infuriating” that nobody from Mr Lindell’s team had contacted his office to check how votes were counted in his county.

“What this means is that somebody just assigned a magic vote fraud number to all Idaho counties. Their goal appears to make a big splash. Shock and Awe. Every State. Oh the Horror.

“This should make your blood boil (Democrats AND Republicans),” he wrote in a news release obtained by the Bonner County Daily Bee.

“What is really infuriating is that nobody from the Lindell group ever called Bonner County Elections to even find out what type of equipment we use, that we weren’t connected to the internet, how we communicated with the Secretary of State, nothing.

“No verification or validation of claims. For the sake of apparently trying to make a big splash, he tarnished the reputations of possibly thousands of counties across the USA. Smooth move Mr Lindell.”

Mr Rosedale said he had previously been sympathetic to Mr Lindell’s “focus on massive voter fraud”, in six key swing states.

He is planning to livestream Bonner County’s recount on 8 October.

Since Mr Lindell aired his claims of voter fraud in Idaho in a document he is calling The Big Lie, several Idaho counties have conducted recounts on the orders of Idaho Secretary of State Lawrence Denney.

When the hand recount votes came back from Butte County, it was found that votes cast for former President Donald Trump fell from 1202 to 1193, while Joe Biden’s votes remained at 130, according to Boise’s Channel 11.

The results in Camas County remained almost identical, with Mr Trump’s vote tally increasing from 507 to 508 and his opponent’s remaining the same at 149.

“Once we had the (Big Lie) document in hand, we immediately believed there was something amiss,” Idaho’s Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said.

“At least seven Idaho counties have no electronic steps in their vote counting processes. That was a huge red flag, and one we knew we could either prove or disprove fairly directly.”

Mr Lindell has repeatedly claimed to have uncovered evidence of fraud in last year’s presidential election without offering any evidence.