Idaho Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck went on CNN Thursday to explain how Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R) can effectively sieze power, albeit very briefly, while Gov. Brad Little (R) is out of state on official business. But he made news by disclosing that Idaho plans to bill MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for the cost of the state's audit of the 2020 election in three counties.
The bill is will probably be around $6,500, Houck said, conceding it's unlikely Lindell will actually pay up without legal action. Still, "why not try and get Lindell to reimburse the state for having to refute his false claim?" he told the Idaho Statesman on Thursday.
Idaho's national election results weren't particularly close — former President Donald Trump won the state with 63.8 percent of the vote — but Lindell's claims that the ballots were electronically flipped from Trump to President Biden in all 44 Idaho counties got so much exposure, state officials decided to disprove his baseless assertions by checking the vote tallies in three small counties that still vote on paper — the "low-hanging fruit," as Houck put it. The final audit was completed last Saturday, and the result was a 0.1 percent margin of error across all three counties.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"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," Houck told the Statesman. "While our team is always looking for possible vulnerabilities, this allegation was patently without merit from the first look," he said in a statement Wednesday. "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."
-
Is hands-off investing the way to go?The Explainer In many cases, your money might be better off left alone
-
Sloth fever shows no signs of slowing downThe explainer The vector-borne illness is expanding its range
-
'With every technological advance, there are risks'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
DOGE put Social Security data at risk, official saysSpeed Read DOGE workers made the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans vulnerable to identity theft
-
Court rejects Trump suit against Maryland US judgesSpeed Read Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee, said the executive branch had no authority to sue the judges
-
Can anyone save Jimmy Lai?Today's Big Question 'Britain's shameful inaction' will mean it's partly 'responsible' if Hong Kong businessman dies in prison
-
Trump expands National Guard role in policingSpeed Read The president wants the Guard to take on a larger role in domestic law enforcement
-
Trump says he's firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa CookSpeed Read The move is likely part of Trump's push to get the central bank to cut interest rates
-
America: Are we now living in an autocracy?Feature 200 days into his presidency and Trump is still deepening his authoritarian grip
-
Red states join in Trump's D.C. crackdownFeature 1,200 troops arrive in Washington D.C. from six red states
-
Pomp but little progress at Trump's Ukraine talksFeature Trump's red carpet welcoming for Putin did little to advance a peace deal with Ukraine
