Election Deniers Got What They Wanted. They’re Still Going

Mike Lindell has spent the past four years desperately trying to prove the 2020 election was stolen from president-elect Donald Trump. In the early hours of November 6, attending Trump’s election night watch party, Lindell’s crusade appeared to be at an end when Trump walked on stage to announce his victory.

But that’s not how the infamous pillow salesman saw it.

“I’ve been trying to get rid of these electronic voting machine companies in the United States for four years,” Lindell tells WIRED. “That’s been my whole focus. And that doesn’t stop, but hopefully it gets easier.”

For the past four years, Lindell has crisscrossed the country nonstop. He has been doing interviews with anyone who will listen, filing frivolous lawsuits that go nowhere, hosting cyber symposiums filled with disinformation, hiding election deniers running from the law, and spending more than $40 million of his own money to claim that the 2020 election was stolen by the voting machines used in US elections.

Lindell has been an important part of a vast network of local, state, and national groups that coalesced around Trump’s own baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen. These groups, which communicated on platforms like Telegram and Facebook, have spent countless hours attending online meetings, making bogus challenges to voter lists, and even knocking on doors to expose so-called illegal immigrant voting schemes.

Lindell, along with others around the US, has helped lead the movement, pushing bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, spreading racist claims about illegal immigrants, and priming followers to reject any result other than a Trump victory. And yet, despite the fact that they got exactly what they want, many show no signs of stopping now.

When WIRED spoke to Lindell last week, he was in California working to secure information that he believes will ultimately show voter fraud in down-ballot races in the state.

“I haven’t taken a break,” says Lindell. “After the election, I went on my annual hunting trip with my sons and my nephew. That was two days, but I was actually working from the deer stand. I’m always working on my phone.”

Some election deniers are even pitching for roles within the new administration—including Lindell.

To WIRED, Lindell suggested the establishment of a “bureau that’s really focused on keeping our elections secure.” When asked whether he would run such a bureau, Lindell says, “Oh, absolutely, my team would plug right in.”

Of course, there is already a bureau that secures US elections: the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whose director, Jen Easterly, said in a November 6 statement that there was “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.” Easterly has announced that she will be leaving her position on the first day of Trump’s new administration.

But Lindell could have some competition for the role of election czar, as other figures who used the election denial movement to carve out lucrative careers seek to cash in on that fame.

“If I may be so direct, I request consideration to be appointed in a special capacity to pursue electoral reform as part of your administration,” Seth Keshel, a well-known election conspiracist whose Substack newsletter has almost 30,000 subscribers, wrote in a letter he sent to Trump last week. “My research into electoral corruption would pair well with the efforts of your Attorney General to identify and pursue remediation into corrupt election procedures that render over 200 electoral votes non-competitive, including corruption I have identified even in your 2024 election victory that cost our coalition of America First candidates many down ballot races.”

In recent days, speculation on X suggested that Patrick Byrne, former Overstock CEO and another major funder of the election denial movement, was willing to join Trump’s new administration as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Byrne clarified the situation on Sunday, writing on X: “I would do it if I were asked,” while adding: “I will not be asked. 47 and I are not close.”

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory, it did appear as if some election deniers were done: “Time for me to go look for a job, put in the good word for me,” David Clements, a former business law teacher at New Mexico State University who became an election denial superstar, wrote on his hugely popular Telegram channel.

But now, the election denial movement has picked up where it left off prior to the election, pushing baseless conspiracy theories despite Trump’s victory. In many cases, as Keshel outlined in his letter, they believe that while the presidential election was run properly, many down-ballot races where Republicans did not win were likely fraudulent.

Within days of the election, Clements was back on the horse, pushing conspiracies about down-ballot election results, including the one Lindell says he is investigating in California.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think election conspiracy theorists are packing up and going home,” Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director at Documented, tells WIRED. “Election conspiracists have built an enduring infrastructure, and in the months to come, the ‘election fraud’ narrative will reemerge and be used to justify restrictive new voting laws, and to lay the groundwork to challenge future elections that MAGA Republicans might lose.”

Clements has also been championing the case of another election denier, Tina Peters, a former Colorado election official who was jailed last month for tampering with voting machines.

Being incarcerated has not stopped Peters from continuing to push election denial conspiracies. This week, clips from a video interview posted on X show Peters pushing more conspiracies about the 2020 and 2024 elections while wearing an orange jumpsuit.

One election denial Telegram channel, known as Election Education, decided to let its followers decide on what the future holds, posting a survey entitled “What Next?” The first option—“it’s time to move on”—got just 1 percent of the vote. Far and away the biggest response—76 percent—was for the option “I’m in this for the long haul. Lots of work to do.”

Recently, the election denial movement has latched onto the race of GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, who was among the loudest voices pushing election conspiracy theories in recent years. Lake lost to Democrat Ruben Gallego last week.

While Lake posted a video accepting her loss last week, that hasn’t stopped the election denial movement from claiming the vote was rigged.

“There was all kinds of fraud that was done in this last election,” Lindell said. “Right now they’re trying to steal down-ticket [races]. Kari Lake in Arizona, that’s blatant, it’s so blatant.”

Right-wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza, whose disproven conspiracy film 2000 Mules helped supercharge claims of election fraud around the 2020 election, has also been pushing similar claims. In a video posted on X last week, D’Souza said: “I refuse to believe [the result], that makes no sense at all,” before adding that while there is no evidence of cheating, he is still demanding a recount.

A week after the election, the Election Integrity Network, a well-funded group that has been at the forefront of the election denial movement, hosted a meeting to discuss next steps. It was attended by almost 200 members.

“The red wave came in on very slim margins, so it is very important that we keep in mind during our celebratory times, that we have a lot more work to do,” Kerri Toloczko, the executive director of the group, said during the meeting, according to a recording reviewed by WIRED. She then added that the group needs to focus on elections in the future, including the 2026 midterms, while warning about vague election fraud conspiracies.

“Obviously, we’re not going away,” said Toloczko. “We have new elections coming up. Virginia has one every year. We’ve got the midterms. New elections [mean] new games. We don’t know what they’re playing at yet, but I guarantee you they’ll be playing at something. So we need to figure out what that is.”

The group’s founder, former Trump adviser Cleta Mitchell, continued to push the baseless claim that a flood of illegal immigrants were voting in US elections, when that figure has been shown to be vanishingly small. She said the group “had a lot of work to do” on the issue and she “hoped the incoming administration will take it seriously.”

While Mitchell and Election Integrity Network haven’t stopped, some groups in the election denial movement are pausing to reassess and see what’s next for them.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the cofounder of True the Vote, one of the most prominent election denial groups that has organized drop box monitoring and large-scale voter challenges, said last week that she was going on “a brief hiatus.”

“Our focus is shifting toward supporting grassroots organizations in building local influence and advocating for common-sense reforms,” Engelbrecht wrote in her channel on the fringe platform Locals.

For Lindell, who approaches election denial with the fervor of a religious zealot, the idea of stopping now is not something that has ever crossed his mind, even if his efforts have left him with no money and huge legal bills.

“I have to [keep going], or we lose our country,” says Lindell, adding that if he has to borrow money to continue funding his efforts, he will. “I wouldn’t trust any election done with computers ever. I will never stop until we get the paper ballot, hands counted.”