Donald Trump baselessly blames historic popular-vote loss on 'millions' of illegal voters

President-elect Donald Trump spent Saturday and early Sunday tweeting about how a recount in Wisconsin and possible recounts or vote audits in Michigan and Pennsylvania are a "scam" that will change "nothing" about his victory in the Electoral College, then shifted later Sunday to tweeting about how illegal voters deprived him of a popular win, too. Hillary Clinton currently has more than 2.2 million more votes than Trump. "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," Trump tweeted, specifically alleging "serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire, and California."

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler gave Trump's assertion of millions of illegal votes "Four Pinocchios," calling it "a bogus claim with no documented proof." ProPublica, which monitored polls and reports of voting problems, says there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. The claim apparently began with one person on Twitter and was picked up by the fringe Alex Jones site Infowars.

On Sunday talk shows, Trump transition senior adviser Kellyanne Conway criticized "the Hillary people" for participating in the state recounts, requested and paid for by Green Party nominee Jill Stein, calling Clinton and Stein "a bunch of crybabies and sore losers" who "can't accept reality."

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In Wisconsin, Trump won by fewer than 22,000 votes, or less than 1 percent of the state's votes. In Michigan, Trump leads Clinton by about 11,000 votes, or 0.22 percent of votes cast, and in Pennsylvania he won by roughly 70,600 votes, or about 1 percent of votes. Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias said the Clinton camp had "not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology," but was participating in the recount because "we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself."