Mike Lindell is holding a 2,200-person rally at the Corn Palace in South Dakota to promote his voter-fraud website Frank

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Mike Lindell is holding a 2,200-person rally at the Corn Palace in South Dakota to promote his voter-fraud website Frank
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images, Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
  • Mike Lindell is holding an in-person "Frank Rally" in Mitchell, South Dakota on Monday.
  • Lindell created Frank as a "free speech" social-media site after Twitter banned him.
  • But it launched instead as a blog spreading misinformation about voter fraud and coronavirus.
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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is holding an in-person rally in South Dakota on Monday to promote "Frank," the website he billed as a social-media site but is so far a one-way platform where Lindell circulates baseless allegations of voter fraud.

The event, titled "Frank Rally," will take place at the Corn Palace in the town of Mitchell.

Lindell first announced the event on former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast.

He said that the event would be free and on a first-come, first-served basis, Inforum reported.

Read more: The MyPillow guy says God helped him beat a crack addiction to build a multimillion-dollar empire. Now his religious devotion to Trump threatens to bring it all crashing down.

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The event will start with a set by comedian Joe Piscopo who made his name on "Saturday Night Live," followed by a speech by Lindell, which he told Bannon would last for up to 90 minutes.

Attendees will receive a free copy of his autobiography, "What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO," alongside a copy of his self-made film "Absolute Proof" which alleges voter fraud in the 2020 election.

"It's going to be fun for everyone, the whole town," Lindell told Bannon.

Event organizers told The Argus Leader that they expected around 2,200 people to attend.

Lindell, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has repeatedly pushed disproven voter-fraud conspiracy theories about the presidential election. He announced plans to launch his own social media site in March after Twitter banned him.

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Lindell had billed the site as a "YouTube-Twitter combination" and said he had spent "millions of dollars" building the platform.

But it was hit by multiple delays, technical problems, and what Lindell claimed was "the biggest attack ever" before Frank ultimately launched as a one-way channel in April.

The site features videos and articles, many written by Lindell himself, that largely focus on voter-fraud conspiracy theories. Some also spread misinformation about the coronavirus, with one article calling vaccines "a deadly depopulation bioweapon."

Lindell's choice of venue has come as a surprise

The Corn Palace seems like a strange location for what Lindell told Bannon would be Frank's "grand, grand opening to the world."

Mitchell has a population of less than 20,000. The Corn Palace describes itself as the town's "premier tourist attraction" and the world's only corn palace, built in the late 1800s to celebrate the crop.

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It's open daily to visitors for free so they can admire its "uniquely designed corn murals," but it can also be hired out for events for $1,750 a day.

Mike Lindell is holding a 2,200-person rally at the Corn Palace in South Dakota to promote his voter-fraud website Frank
The Corn Palace is located in Mitchell, a South Dakota town with a population of under 20,000.Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

Lindell's rally is sandwiched between a Dakota Wesleyan University graduation ceremony and an event by the American Corn Hole Association.

Lindell told Bannon that he chose South Dakota partly because of its Republican governor Kristi Noem, who refused to introduce statewide mask mandates and lockdowns during the pandemic.

South Dakota Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson told Forum News Service that he didn't "agree with many of [Lindell's] debunked claims" about the 2020 election, but that "cancel culture is just as dangerous."

"We shouldn't stop him from coming to South Dakota just because his views are different than mine or yours," he added.

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