Donald Trump alleges illegal voting cost him US popular vote

US President-elect Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that he would have won popular vote in the presidential poll, which took place on Nov. 8, "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." However, he did not provide any evidence for the same.

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump wrote in one of his tweets.

The US presidential race is based on state-by-state contest rather than national vote. Trump has surpassed 270 electoral votes required to win the White House. Although Trump has won the required votes in electoral college to secure the presidency, Hillary Clinton is leading the popular vote. As of now, she has surpassed 2 million votes. The figure is expected to grow after the ballots in populous states, including California amongst others, will be tallied.

“It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than in the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4 states instead of the 15 states that I visited,” Trump wrote in another tweet.

These statements from Trump came after the Clinton campaign said that they support the vote recount in Wisconsin initiated by Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

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“We have an obligation to more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported,” said Marc Elias, general counsel of Clinton’s campaign.

Stein is further seeking recount in Michigan as well as Pennsylvania, citing "statistical anomalies." Concerns are growing over the possibility of Russian interference in the run-up to vote. Hence, the Green Party nominee wants to make sure that the hackers didn’t skew the polls in Trump’s favour. Trump, on the other side, said that the recount effort was “ridiculous.”

In another follow up tweet, Trump said, “Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California -- so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias -- big problem.” Apparently, Clinton won from the three states.