Following his defeat in the Minnesota governor’s race, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell has vowed to conduct a full hand count of all ballots, citing multiple irregularities he claims were identified by his team during election night.

In a statement released Wednesday, Lindell detailed alleged discrepancies including vote totals that reportedly reversed direction during reporting, unusual synchronization of vote counts across all seven Republican candidates, and counties reporting more votes than were cast. He emphasized these findings justify the manual recount process.

Lindell stated the audit will include “designated observers stationed throughout the hand-counting process.” He added that even if the recount fails to overturn his loss in the governor’s race, he believes it would serve as a pathway to eliminating electronic voting machines in Minnesota.

The candidate defended his actions by noting Minnesota law grants candidates the right to request a full ballot audit outside the narrow margin triggering state-funded recounts. “One of the few good election laws Minnesota does have,” Lindell said in the statement, “is that as a candidate, I have the right to completely audit and hand count every ballot in the state.” He declared his intent to exercise this right “to the full extent of the law.”