Trump alleges voter fraud, says millions voted illegally
Thanksgiving holiday at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort with his family, Trump again took to Twitter, alleging that voter fraud had occurred in several states.
“Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California – so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias – big problem!” Trump posted.
Trump and his aides have offered no evidence concerning the claims, nor did Trump explain why he would oppose the nascent Wisconsin recount if illegal voting was such a serious problem. No election observers have pointed to any such widespread fraud.
While the recount was requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who received a minute fraction of the total vote in Wis- consin, Clinton’s campaign has said it would join the process despite having seen no irregularities in the contest so far.
Trump’s top aide Kellyanne Conway, in the middle of the turbulence, appeared on Sunday to at least hint that if the Clinton team pushes too hard on theWisconsin recount, the presidentelect might rethink his vow not to seek Clinton’s prosecution for using a private email server when she was secretary of state.
Conway said on ABC that while Trump was being “magnanimous” toward Clinton, “I guess her attitude towards that is to have her counsel go and join this ridiculous recount.”
Marc Erik Elias, an election lawyer for the Democratic candidate, said in a post on Medium. com on Saturday that the campaign would also participate in recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania if they are arranged.
Most election experts see almost no chance the election outcome could be reversed – Clinton trails in each state by several thousand votes.
Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania andWisconsin by a total of just over 100,000 votes, even while compiling many more than the 270 votes needed for victory in the Electoral College.
The dispute continued to roil what has already been a rough transition period, as signs of internal discord over cabinet picks again emerged on Sunday.
The discord centers around the position of secretary of state, with some in the Trump camp supporting Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, as a more mainstream choice while others favor the more divisive former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
In what political analysts considered a highly unusual public airing of those tensions from within the Trump team, Conway last week tweeted she had received “a deluge” of concern from people warning against Romney. Asked about that on Sunday, she told NBC that she was not “campaigning” against Romney, but was “just astonished at the breathtaking volume and intensity of blowback” to a possible Romney nomination.
Trump supporters were infur iated in March when t he former Massachusetts governor delivered a passionately worded attack on Trump on the part of the Republican Party’s establishment, calling him a “fraud”, given to “absurd third-grade theatrics”.