Should Democrats be pursuing recounts of the presidential election results?

According to President-Elect Donald Trump, he also won the popular vote – at least, if you only count legal voters.

If a recount of the almost 4.8 million votes cast in MI for president on November 8 takes place, county clerks’ offices around the state will become crowded with passionate and highly vested eyewitnesses.

Tensions over the recount highlight the deep scars left by a divisive presidential campaign and how they have been amplified by the US’s electoral college system. To borrow a phrase used in the buildup to election day that described the President-elect’s possible contesting of results, they’ve gone “full Trump”.

“The federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyber activity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day”. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on?

Mr Trump returned to NY on Sunday evening after spending Thanksgiving weekend at his West Palm Beach, Florida, estate amid increasing infighting over who should be chosen for the most important White House job. Clinton’s significant lead moreover indicates that her political agenda appealed to most of America and that, under the circumstances, Trump and his band of bigots do not have just cause to implement theirs.

Mrs Clinton leads the national popular vote by close to two million votes, but Mr Trump won 290 electoral votes to her 232, not counting MI.

Wisconsin officials will hold a news conference Monday to discuss details of the recount, spearheaded by Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein.

Earlier he described an impending recount of votes in Wisconsin as a “scam” and said the results of the presidential election should be respected instead of being challenged or “abused”.

President-elect Donald Trump voiced his concerns online tweeting that Clinton had already conceded to him and the results of the recount would not change the election results.

Trump has also – once again, without evidence – claimed there was “serious voter fraud” in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.

Trump in recent days also criticized an effort by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, later joined by Clinton’s campaign, to call for a recount of the vote in the state of Wisconsin, which Trump narrowly won. As she nears the 2 million mark in the popular vote.

“Doing the recount by hand is the only way to ensure we have a reliable recount of the vote”, said a spokesperson for the Stein recount effort. Been around for 240 years.

But Trump can’t concede decency on the part of his opponents, certainly not when he is so dissatisfied with the outcome himself. And in his first sit-down interview after the election, the real estate mogul told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that his opinion hadn’t changed. Kellyanne Conway, his former campaign manager and now senior adviser to the transition team, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump and President Barack Obama spoke by phone for about 45 minutes on Saturday, the latest in a series of conversations the two men have had since the bitter campaign concluded. “That is a direct threat to our democracy”.

And then he quoted Clinton’s own concession statement, writing: ” ‘Trump is going to be our President. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead”.

“So much time and money will be spent – same result!” Kelly Ayotte – are likely safe as the deadline to request a recount has passed, despite Clinton’s razor-thin margin of just under 2,800 votes.