Mike Lindell ordered to pay $5 million for losing his own election data challenge

Mike Lindell must pay $5 million for losing his 2020 “Prove Mike Wrong” campaign challenge, an arbitration panel has ruled.

In a ruling dated Wednesday, the panel found that software developer Robert Zeidman won Lindell’s 2021 competition, challenging experts to prove the data he had was not from the 2020 election, and ordered the founder of MyPillow to pay him the reward he had promised within 30 days.

Lindell told NBC News on Thursday that the decision was “a horrible, bad decision.”

“Everything will end up in court,” he said.

The contest took place in August 2021 at a cyber symposium that Lindell — an outspoken Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist — was hosting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

As part of the symposium, Lindell announced a competition called the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” in which participants had to find proof that his cyberdata was not valid data from the November election, the ruling said. The ad read, “For those who find the evidence, 5 million is their reward.”

At a hearing in January, Lindell testified that the cyber experts he hired convinced him he “couldn’t lose the contest because the data he was given was real election data.” , according to the decision, which was first reported by The Washington. Job.

Among the symposium attendees was Zeidman, a Donald Trump voter who was thrilled to see the evidence Lindell had found.

Zeidman “wanted it to be 2020 election data,” said his lawyer, Brian Glasser of Bailey & Glasser LLP.

Zeidman “testified that he was interested in the claims that there was interference in the 2020 election and that he wanted to access the data as promised to see” the ongoing story, perhaps to see a election overturned,’” the ruling said, and he decided to enter the contest because it was free, but “told his friends he was unlikely to win because Mr. Lindell would not offer not a $5 million prize if Mr. Lindell had not had his own experts verify all the data to be submitted.”

But the “red team” of experts convened by Lindell had their own concerns about the data, according to the decision, and team members “protested that the data was not at all what they were looking for. were waiting”.

“They expected to receive packet capture data that could be reviewed and authenticated to assess whether the data files provided were genuine or had been tampered with or altered,” the filing said. But that’s not what they got.

A team member advised Lindell to cancel the contest, but he refused, according to the filing.

Zeidman received 11 submissions for review over two days at the conference and quickly changed his mind about their merit.

“To his chagrin, he found out it wasn’t 2020 election data,” Glasser said.

After analyzing the files, Zeidman believed he would win the contest, according to the ruling, and he later presented a report concluding that Lindell’s data “unequivocally” contained no information related to the November 2020 election, despite his assertions.

Lindell’s competition jury disagreed, so under the terms of the rules, Zeidman took the case to arbitration. Glasser said each side should choose an arbiter, who joined a neutral third arbiter. All three ruled in favor of Zeidman.

While Lindell was optimistic he could overturn the verdict in federal court proceedings, Glasser said he and his co-lawyer Cary Joshi weren’t concerned.

“There is virtually no reason to appeal an arbitration verdict,” Glasser said. “It just won’t happen.”

Lindell’s defense of election conspiracies also faced him with other legal problems. He is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems, a former Dominion employee named Eric Coomer, and another voting company called Smartmatic for defamation over his election claims.

Still, Lindell told NBC News that his theories are factual and, as he has said repeatedly since the 2020 election, that he will show evidence of his campaign claims in the near future.

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