Appeals court hands Mike Lindell win in fight over $5M election fraud contest
The three-judge 8 th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel's unanimous decision found an arbitration panel exceeded its power by changing unambiguous contract terms to award the developer Lindell's prize.
'Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,' U.S. Circuit Judge James Loken wrote in the 12-page decision.
Lindell hosted a 'Cyber Symposium' in South Dakota in 2021, where he showed data claiming Chinese election interference in President Biden's 2020 victory. Lindell offered $5 million if someone could prove the data was 'unequivocally' not related to the 2020 election.
Software developer Robert Zeidman, a contestant, produced a 15-page report rebuffing Lindell's data. But the challenge judges said Zeidman wasn't entitled to the prize. Per the contest rules, Zeidman brought the dispute into arbitration.
After a hearing, the arbitration panel ruled in his favor. The panel concluded Zeidman had proven Lindell had not provided packet capture data, often referred to as PCAP files, and therefore had shown it was not election data.
'We conclude that the panel effectively amended the unambiguous Challenge contract when it used extrinsic evidence to require that the data provided was packet capture data, thereby violating established principles of Minnesota contract law and our arbitration precedents,' Loken wrote in the opinion.
Loken is an appointee of the first former President Bush. His decision was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Lavenski Smith, appointed by the younger former President Bush; and U.S. Circuit Judge L. Steven Grasz, appointed by President Trump.
The decision instructs a lower court to immediately wipe the $5 million arbitration award or conduct further proceedings in line with the appeals court's reversal.
The Hill has reached out to attorneys for Zeidman and Lindell for comment.
Lindell has been embroiled in litigation over his baseless claims of mass election fraud in the 2020 election.
Last month, a Colorado jury ordered Lindell to pay $2.3 million to a former Dominion Voting Systems employee who sued him for defamation. Lindell also faces defamation lawsuits that remain ongoing from both Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting systems company.
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