MyPillow's Mike Lindell thinks US elections aren't secure. Here's his plan to secure them

Throughout the two-day Election Crime Bureau Summit, Mike Lindell and other speakers at the Springfield event stoked anticipation for the revelation of their plan to swiftly secure U.S. elections.

When the countdown to the plan’s reveal reached zero, Lindell premiered a video touting new technology capable of detecting nearby wireless internet connections.

He then proceeded to fly one of these wireless monitoring devices into the Springfield Expo Center — mounted on a drone.

Lindell demonstrated the capability of the device — a WMD, for short — to detect cellphones, printers, computers and other devices connected to local networks.

He hopes to use the devices to detect suspicious internet connections in polling places, working off the debunked theory that vote tabulation machines are connected to the internet.

Lindell leaves many questions unanswered

When the crowd raised detailed questions about specific aspects of the technology or voting system, Lindell delivered less than satisfactory answers.

“I've worked the polls here at Greene County,” said attendee James Claire. “At the end of the night, the results, the ballots are all packed up. The results are put on a zip drive, and that package is taken to the clerk's office. So I think that's the point where you might have problems.”

“That’s all been covered,” Lindell said. “You’ve been lied to there, too. It makes it look like nothing goes online, but, believe me, at some point they go online.”

Another respondent asked about more technical aspects of the new WMD.

“What spectrum is this device actually detecting?” an attendee from South Dakota asked. “Especially with the DS450, that motherboard is made in Germany using the European standards, not the UL spectrum.”

Although the South Dakota attendee was using a microphone, and his voice was well amplified throughout the Expo Center, Lindell twice said he couldn’t hear what was being said. Finally, after a guest in the front row repeated the question to Lindell, he provided an answer.

“Don’t worry,” Lindell said. “Trust me, it’s been a year in the making. It’s all covered. Every single part is covered. There’s no hole.”

Lindell tried to steer the line of questioning away from the technical aspects of the device.

“So, I’d really like questions, like, what can we do with ourselves to do this?” Lindell said.

Respondents peppered Lindel with questions about the device's range, price and availability. Insisting that the devices are “perfectly legal,” Lindell said that they must be placed within 100 yards of a polling place, but he thinks it could be set for further distances.

The drone is not essential to the device's use, but it made for a splashy entrance to the event and implied that drone's could be used to fly the WMD over polling places. As for their price and availability, Lindell didn’t give a clear answer.

“Up until now, my plan was to give them out for the election,” Lindell said. “That was my plan, but I ran out of money. That’s why you see the Lindell Offense Fund up there on the board.”

Lindell said that the Springfield event cost him $1 million, which he took out a loan to fund. (Emails sent to attendees in advance said the event would cost $3 million). No admission fee was charged, and meals were provided during the two-day summit.

After sharing a heartfelt tale of his divine mandate to secure elections in the country, he emphasized his need for financial support to accomplish this mission.

Following this, one elderly attendee shouted, “Mike, where can I give you my check?”

Lindell personally came into the crowd and began accepting donation checks. Other attendees in rows not reached by Lindell passed around a pink Trump 2024 hat to collect other donations.

Later in the event, Jeff O’Donnell, a Florida-based Lindell supporter, estimated that the device would be under $500.

“The cost is still being determined because the price of the components is always fluctuating. It depends on volume runs and a lot of things,” O’Donnell said. “Also we're trying to make sure that we're not putting any more expensive hardware than what we need to get the job done.”

O’Donnell stressed the importance of getting the devices into sensitive election locations.

“The people who get these devices can take them around to the election offices, Secretary of State’s offices, precincts, if that’s what they want to do,” O’Donnell said. “The other side has ballot mules. Well, we’re going to have truth mules.”

“We want these officials to know that we are monitoring them,” Lindell said.

More: Missouri politicians make appearances at Mike Lindell’s Election Crime Bureau event

Other components of Lindell’s election plan

The plan would not be complete without some way to monitor the Wi-Fi connections detected by the WMD devices. Lindell offered a solution through means of his FrankSocial website and mobile app.

With a social feed that allows users to “detect real time crime,” FrankSocial will allow users to report suspected election crime in their states and counties. It connects with other social platforms, like Trump’s Truth Social, to allow users to see and have their content seen by a larger audience.

“The bad guys have hundreds and hundreds of organizations that are committed 24/7, 365 to making sure you don't have any freedom anymore so that they can steal the elections away from us,” said Patrick Colbeck, a speaker at the event. “We need organizations that are equally equipped. It's got to be persistent.”

Users were urged to download the FrankSocial app and create accounts during a live demonstration of the new “real time crime” feature. However, the app soon crashed, the demonstration was postponed, and attendees were unable to gain access.

What organizers first assumed was a crash from a large volume of new downloads was later attributed to a cyberattack from an unknown source. Colbeck accused an unnamed assailant of assaulting the event’s internet connection, too.

“There's a reason why they're messing around with our internet connection down here,” Colbeck said. “There's a reason why they're trying to de-platform us right now. There's a reason why they cut off the mic whenever (Lindell) talks about election fraud. It's because they can't handle the truth.”

More: Election conspiracy theories, talk of divine mandate at Mike Lindell's Springfield event

The event wrapped up by giving attendees resources to challenge elections in their home states, including talking points for arguing voting machines are corruptible, implementing hand-counted elections, alleging that fraud happens in elections and combating misinformation.

Linda Rantz, who pushed for hand-counted ballots in Osage County, told the crowd that the hand-counted election in the county in April saved money and hardly took more time to complete.

Rantz calculated that it cost Osage County $3,840 to hand count ballots in April 2023, but estimated that it cost them $10,271 to use voting machines in April 2022.

However, those figures are disputed by a letter to the editor of The Unterrified Democrat, the county’s local print newspaper, written by Nicci Kammerich, the county clerk and election authority in Osage County.

“Last year, the total cost for elections in April 2022 was $20,796.18,” Kammerich wrote. “This April Election the total cost was $21,271.69 That is a $475.51 difference.”

However, in a small municipal election, voter turnout was much lower than it would be in a general election.

Additionally, 36 election judges waived payment this year, but indicated that they may not return if the hand count process continued in future elections. If all had wanted payment for their services, it would have raised the bill by $4,006.52, for a total of $25,278.21.

Rantz repeatedly insisted that both local and state governments were unwilling to provide exact totals of the cost of their elections. She claimed that sometimes officials didn’t even know what the cost was.

“We know more about this, because we are really digging into it,” Rantz said.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Mike Lindell election plan: Wi-Fi detection devices in polling places