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."
-
Political cartoons for October 17Cartoons Friday's editorial cartoons include Tomahawk missile talk, the price of red meat, and the bestest boy reports from the Pentagon press room
-
The ‘swag gap’: are you better than your partner?In The Spotlight The viral terminology sheds light on power dynamics in modern relationships
-
Climate change is getting under our skinUnder the radar Skin conditions are worsening because of warming temperatures
-
Pentagon reporters turn in badges after refusing rulesSpeed Read They refused to sign a restrictive new press policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
-
Supreme Court points to gutting Voting Rights Actspeed read States would no longer be required to consider race when drawing congressional maps
-
Trump says he authorized covert CIA ops in VenezuelaSpeed Read He is also considering military strikes inside the country
-
Are inflatable costumes and naked bike rides helping or hurting ICE protests?Talking Points Trump administration efforts to portray Portland and Chicago as dystopian war zones have been met with dancing frogs, bare butts and a growing movement to mock MAGA doomsaying
-
‘Are we just going to stand in passive witness to the degradation of our democracy?’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
‘Vile, racist’ leaked chats roil Young RepublicansSpeed Read Leaders of Young Republican groups made racist, antisemitic and violent comments in private chats
-
Trump ties $20B Argentina bailout to Milei votesspeed read Trump will boost Argentina’s economy — if the country’s right-wing president wins upcoming elections
-
Venezuela: Does Trump want war?Feature Donald Trump has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a drug cartel and waging a narco-terrorism campaign against the United States
