Trump assails recount push, claims millions voted illegally

In none of the tweets did Trump point to any evidence of voter fraud to account for his claim and no other evidence of his assertion has emerged since the election. He also tweeted how people should give him a “chance to lead”, now that he is president-elect.

Mrs Clinton’s legal team said it has agreed to take part in a recount of votes in Wisconsin after the state’s election board approved a request by Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Stein’s crusade came to light on Friday, when she filed a filed a recount petition in Wisconsin – claiming she had raised $5.2 million to pay for re-tallies there and in MI and Pennsylvania. On Saturday, the Clinton campaign announced it would be participating in the recount as well. The ultimate Hail Mary would be to raise enough smoke about irregularities that individual electors would deny Mr. Trump the 270 votes he needs in the Electoral College.

This is the first time that Trump has claimed that illegal votes were cast for Clinton, while during the campaign he had stated that the election was going to be “rigged” against him and threatened that he might not acknowledge the results if he lost. In addition to Stein, independent presidential Rocky de la Fuente also requested a recount in Wisconsin, and Stein has raised more than enough money to fund it.

Trump won all three states by a narrow margin in the presidential election, leading his major rival Democrat Hillary Clinton with just over 100,000 votes in all three states.

The president-elect then drew attention to a debate remark by Clinton after Trump refused to commit to accepting the results of the 8 November election, quoting her as saying: “That is horrifying”.

Stein and Clinton’s teams cited concerns over the integrity of voting systems, which Trump himself discussed during the campaign.

The Trump offensive came as the president-elect faced fresh questions about how his property empire’s global ties may influence his conduct of foreign policy and more scrutiny of the messy nature of his transition and the divide within his party over key appointments.

George Martin, a former co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party who’s involved in Stein’s recount effort, said the party has been approached by computer scientists, election lawyers and other experts advocating vote recounts because of what they see as persuasive evidence of tampered election results.

On Saturday, Trump issued a statement in which he called the Green Party’s effort a “scam”.

Trump has vacillated in his support for the Electoral College. The big battle, Romney versus Giuliani for the secretary of state spot. Referring to attempts to influence the presidential election that have been officially blamed on Russian Federation, it said in a statement the election results nonetheless “accurately reflect the will of the American people”.

Trump’s former campaign manager made it clear Sunday that she does not think the nominee should be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Several petitions asking electors to defy the results of their particular vote and vote for Clinton have garnered millions of signatures, though the likelihood of that happening is nearly non-existent according to most political observers.