WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) — The day before Thanksgiving, Hillary Clinton‘s lead over President-elect Donald Trump in the popular vote grew to more than two million, and continued to have no effect on the Electoral College — as most expect the body to follow state-by-state delegate count results from election night.
Trump responded to the widening gap in the popular vote and a movement for recounts in three key states because of alleged irregularities in their elections, suggesting on Twitter that he only lost the popular vote because millions of people voted for Clinton illegally.
“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide,” Trump tweeted, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
Trump beat Clinton in the Electoral College 306 to 232, giving him the White House, though few have called it a landslide. Since election night, though, Clinton’s lead in the popular vote had grown significantly, to 2.1 million as of Thanksgiving. The widening lead has led some to call for abolishing the Electoral College, with Sen. Barbara Boxer introducing a bill to start the process of changing the Constitution.
Sound as Trump’s win appears to be in the Electoral College, theories have abounded about fraud or other ballot issues in three key states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Trump narrowly beat Clinton in the states by counts of 23,000, 70,000 and 10,000 — all close margins.
The drumbeat to request recalls in all three states in the last week has picked up as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein raised more than $5.3 million within days to fund recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The Wisconsin recount is already slated to start.
Computer experts said last week they believe voting machines may have been tampered with and, based on large Clinton leads in all three states that shrunk and then disappeared over the course of election nights, something seems off to them.
Trump lashed out on Twitter over the possible recounts, which he called a scam, and said he believed there is “serious voter fraud” in Virginia, New Hampshire and California, though no such thing has been reported there.
“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded,” Trump’s transition team said in a statement, “and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused.”
