Judge gives engineer one more shot to 'Prove Mike Wrong' about 2020 election 'data' after his $5M prize went up in smoke

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell exits the West Wing of the White House, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein).

An engineer and software analyst who voted for President Donald Trump twice and won a $5 million award for acing the "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge — only to see that windfall wiped away — will have one more chance to face off with unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Mike Lindell.

Senior U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim, in a brief Wednesday order, sent the dispute back to arbitration, as requested by Robert "Bob" Zeidman in the aftermath of his rejection at the U.S. Supreme Court in January and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' remand.

"After careful consideration of the record and the parties' arguments, the Court will vacate the arbitration award, grant Zeidman's motion for rehearing, and order the panel to consider the parties' dispute in light of the vacatur directed by and consistent with the Eighth Circuit's decision," the judge said.

Lindell issued his challenge at a South Dakota election fraud "Cyber Symposium" in 2021. The former MyPillow CEO and foremost election conspiracy theorist claimed his data showed China interfered in 2020, but an arbitration panel subsequently decided Zeidman "proved that each file did not include packet capture data (PCAP) and thus was not related to the November 2020 election, so he had satisfied the Challenge rules."

Notably, however, the rules made no mention of "packet capture data," something Tunheim noticed before he upheld the $5 million award.

The 8th Circuit ultimately found that the arbitration panel used additional language outside the terms of the challenge rules themselves to interpret the contract, which circuit judges said was legally improper under Minnesota law. Thus, the court vacated the $5 million award.

It was a major blow for Zeidman — one that the Supreme Court left untouched.

Not giving up, Zeidman filed a motion in district court for a rehearing "by the original arbitration panel," which the judge has now granted — over Lindell's objection that a rehearing would be "futile."

Tunheim reasoned that because there are "multiple ways for the panel to reasonably interpret the contractual language" without considering "extrinsic evidence," there are multiple possible outcomes upon a rehearing of Zeidman's breach of contract claim.

"On remand, the question before the Court is whether the dispute should be directed for rehearing before the original arbitration panel," the judge said. "The Court concludes rehearing is appropriate. The parties agreed to arbitrate their disputes, and because the facts presented may result in more than one possible outcome, the Court will direct a rehearing by the arbitrators."