President-elect Donald Trump claimed without evidence Sunday that “millions” voted illegally in the national election, scoffing at Hillary Clinton’s nearly 2 million edge in the popular vote and returning to his campaign mantra of a rigged race even as he prepares to enter the White House in less than two months.

Trump and his lieutenants assailed an effort — now joined by Clinton — to recount votes in up to three battleground states, calling the push fraudulent, the work of “crybabies” and, in Trump’s estimation, “sad.”

The president-elect went on to cast a shadow over the legitimacy of an election that he actually won, tweeting that “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” He further contended that if the popular vote determined the presidency, “It would have been much easier for me to win” it because he would have altered his campaign to pile up overall vote totals, not Electoral College votes.

There’s been no indication of widespread vote manipulation, illegal voting or hacking that materially affected the outcome one way or the other. It’s that very lack of evidence that suggests Trump is likely to prevail in recounts.

As Trump worked to fill foreign policy and national security posts in his Cabinet, a top adviser expressed astonishment that 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney remained under consideration for secretary of state after his campaign-long questioning of Trump’s character, intellect and integrity.

Trump on Sunday tweeted part of Clinton’s concession speech, when she told supporters they must accept that “Donald Trump is going to be our president,” and snippets from her debate remarks, when she denounced the Republican nominee for refusing to say in advance that he would accept the Election Day verdict.

This came on top of his saying it was a “scam” that Green Party nominee Jill Stein was revisiting the vote count in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump won Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and as of Wednesday, held a lead of almost 11,000 votes in Michigan, with the results awaiting state certification Monday. His Michigan margin was a hair’s breadth 0.22 percent of the state’s votes.

Clinton leads the national popular vote by close to 2 million votes, but Trump won 290 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232, not counting Michigan. She could conceivably tip the electoral balance in the remote event that all flipped to her in recounts.

Trump planned to return to New York on Sunday after spending Thanksgiving weekend at his West Palm Beach estate. His transition team said the president-elect had scheduled a series of meetings Monday with prospective administration hires.

Among the jobs Trump has still yet to fill: secretary of state. Internal division over the position again spilled out into the open on Sunday as Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway voiced her concerns with the possibility of Romney landing such a significant position.

Trump supporters “feel a bit betrayed that you can get a Romney back in there after everything he did,” Conway said. “We don’t even know if he voted for Donald Trump. He and his consultants were nothing but awful to Donald Trump for a year.” She added that she was “reflecting what the grassroots are saying.”

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker are among other prospects to serve as the country’s top diplomat.

“I’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position,” Conway said.

Trump’s incoming chief of staff, national party Chairman Reince Priebus, acknowledged that Romney would represent “a team of rivals concept.”

Trump was mostly silent on the brewing recount effort until it became known that Clinton would join it, at least in Wisconsin. On Saturday, a day after Wisconsin officials said they would conduct the first presidential recount in the state’s history, Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias said: “We intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.”

Elias said Clinton would take the same approach in Pennsylvania and Michigan if Stein were to follow through with recount requests in those states.

“Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Nothing will change.”

He quoted from her concession speech — “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead” — and he concluded: “So much time and money will be spent — same result! Sad.”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Conway said Stein, “the Hillary people” and others supporting recounts have to decide whether they are going to back a peaceful transition “or if they’re going to be a bunch of crybabies and sore losers about an election that they can’t turn around.”

Priebus, on “Fox News Sunday,” called the effort a “total and complete distraction and a fraud and something that they should drop.”

Clinton’s lawyer said her team has been combing through the results since the election in search of anomalies that would suggest hacking by Russians or others and found “no actionable evidence” of an altered outcome.

Elias said Trump also has a vote lead even in the closest states that well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount.

But “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,” he said.

Trump beat Clinton in Wisconsin by fewer than 22,200 votes, less than 1 percent of votes cast. He won Pennsylvania by some 70,600 votes, just more than 1 percentage point over Clinton. </s> besides winning the Electoral College "in a landslide" in the Nov. 8 election: "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."

The allegation, made without evidence, comes as Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote over Trump has surpassed 2 million votes and is expected to grow to more than 2.5 million as ballots in populous states such as California continue to be tallied.

Clinton's legal team said on Saturday it had agreed to participate in a recount of Wisconsin votes after the state's election board approved the effort requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, which Trump has called "ridiculous."

"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 tweeted as reporters waited for him to leave his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Florida to fly back to his residence in New York City.

The U.S. presidential race is decided by the Electoral College, based on a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the national vote. Trump has surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. The Electoral College results are expected to be finalized on Dec. 19.

Trump added he would have won the "so-called popular vote ... easily and convincingly" if the U.S. election was determined that way instead of by the Electoral College.

Before the election, Trump made unsubstantiated allegations that the results of the election might be "rigged" against him.

Since the vote, Trump's message has alternated between appealing for unity and railing against his opponents and the media.

In a video message released ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Trump said he hoped it would be a time for Americans "to begin to heal our divisions" following a "long and bruising political campaign."

Trump has derided the fundraising effort by Stein to launch recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as a "scam." Those states had voted Democratic in recent presidential elections but all broke narrowly for the Republican Trump in this month's election. The recounts are not expected to change the results of the election.

Stein, who won about 1 percent of the national vote, has said she wants a recount to guarantee the integrity of the U.S. voting system, a push that came after some experts raised the possibility that hacks could have affected the results.

Democratic President Barack Obama's administration has said there is no evidence of electoral tampering, but experts have said that the only way to verify the results are accurate is to conduct a recount.

Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence have a series of meetings in New York on Monday to interview potential Cabinet members and other advisers. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. </s> PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said without evidence in a tweet on Sunday that he won the popular vote in the Nov. 8 election "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."

The allegation by Trump, who won the required votes in the Electoral College to secure the presidency, comes as Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote over Trump has surpassed 2 million votes and is expected to grow to more than 2.5 million as ballots in populous states such as California continue to be tallied.

Clinton's legal team said on Saturday it had agreed to participate in a recount of Wisconsin votes after the state's election board approved the effort requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, which Trump has called "ridiculous."

"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," the Republican Trump tweeted as reporters waited for him to leave his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Florida to fly back to his residence in New York City.

The U.S. presidential race is decided by the Electoral College, based on a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the national vote. Trump has surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. The Electoral College results are expected to be finalized on Dec. 19. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

"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 added in follow-up tweets.

Before the election, Trump made unsubstantiated allegations that the results of the election might be "rigged" against him.

Since the vote, his message has alternated between appealing for unity and railing against his opponents and the media.

In a video message released ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Trump said he hoped it would be a time for Americans "to begin to heal our divisions" following a "long and bruising political campaign."

Trump has derided the fundraising effort by Stein to launch recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as a "scam." Those states had voted Democratic in recent presidential elections but all broke narrowly for the Republican Trump in this month's election. The recounts are not expected to change the results of the election.

Stein, who won about 1 percent of the national vote, has said she wants a recount to guarantee the integrity of the U.S. voting system, a push that came after some experts raised the possibility that hacks could have affected the results.

Democratic President Barack Obama's administration has said there is no evidence of electoral tampering, but experts have said that the only way to verify the results are accurate is to conduct a recount. </s> This brings the final electoral tally for Trump 306, while former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has 232 electoral votes.

Trump has won the state of Michigan by a 10,704 vote margin, with the President-elect earning 2,279,543 votes (47.5%) and Clinton earning 2,268,839 votes (47.3%).

Michigan was the only state that hadn't officially been called because the vote was too close for CNN's election results.

Clinton continues to lead Trump for the country's popular vote by about 2 million votes and the lead is likely to grow as votes are still being counted. It's likely Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who has initiated recounts in other close states, will also ask Michigan to check their results. </s> The allegation, made without evidence, comes as Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote over Trump has surpassed 2 million votes and is expected to grow to more than 2.5 million as ballots in populous states such as California continue to be tallied.

Clinton's legal team said on Saturday it had agreed to participate in a recount of Wisconsin votes after the state's election board approved the effort requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, which Trump has called "ridiculous."

"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 tweeted as reporters waited for him to leave his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Florida to fly back to his residence in New York City.

The U.S. presidential race is decided by the Electoral College, based on a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the national vote. Trump has surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. The Electoral College results are expected to be finalized on Dec. 19.

Trump added he would have won the "so-called popular vote ... easily and convincingly" if the U.S. election was determined that way instead of by the Electoral College.

Before the election, Trump made unsubstantiated allegations that the results of the election might be "rigged" against him.

Since the vote, Trump's message has alternated between appealing for unity and railing against his opponents and the media.

In a video message released ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Trump said he hoped it would be a time for Americans "to begin to heal our divisions" following a "long and bruising political campaign."

Trump has derided the fundraising effort by Stein to launch recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as a "scam." Those states had voted Democratic in recent presidential elections but all broke narrowly for the Republican Trump in this month's election. The recounts are not expected to change the results of the election.

Stein, who won about 1 percent of the national vote, has said she wants a recount to guarantee the integrity of the U.S. voting system, a push that came after some experts raised the possibility that hacks could have affected the results.

Democratic President Barack Obama's administration has said there is no evidence of electoral tampering, but experts have said that the only way to verify the results are accurate is to conduct a recount.

Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence have a series of meetings in New York on Monday to interview potential Cabinet members and other advisers. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Dustin Volz; Writing by Dustin Volz; Editing by Peter Cooney) </s> The allegation by Trump, who won the required votes in the Electoral College to secure the presidency, comes as Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote over Trump has surpassed 2 million votes and is expected to grow to more than 2.5 million as ballots in populous states such as California continue to be tallied.

Clinton's legal team said on Saturday it had agreed to participate in a recount of Wisconsin votes after the state's election board approved the effort requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, which Trump has called "ridiculous."

"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," the Republican Trump tweeted as reporters waited for him to leave his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Florida to fly back to his residence in New York City.

The U.S. presidential race is decided by the Electoral College, based on a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the national vote. Trump has surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. The Electoral College results are expected to be finalized on Dec. 19. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

"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 added in follow-up tweets.

Before the election, Trump made unsubstantiated allegations that the results of the election might be "rigged" against him.

Since the vote, his message has alternated between appealing for unity and railing against his opponents and the media.

In a video message released ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Trump said he hoped it would be a time for Americans "to begin to heal our divisions" following a "long and bruising political campaign."

Trump has derided the fundraising effort by Stein to launch recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as a "scam." Those states had voted Democratic in recent presidential elections but all broke narrowly for the Republican Trump in this month's election. The recounts are not expected to change the results of the election.

Stein, who won about 1 percent of the national vote, has said she wants a recount to guarantee the integrity of the U.S. voting system, a push that came after some experts raised the possibility that hacks could have affected the results.

Democratic President Barack Obama's administration has said there is no evidence of electoral tampering, but experts have said that the only way to verify the results are accurate is to conduct a recount. </s> WASHINGTON — Nearly three weeks after Election Day, Michigan officials certified Monday that Donald Trump won the state by 10,704 votes out of nearly 4.8 million to claim all of its 16 electoral votes. There's more wrangling to come, though, on the final vote count for this oh-so-contentious campaign.

Jill Stein's Green Party served notice that it would petition for a Michigan recount even as her party pushed forward with recount efforts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Trump won by somewhat wider but still small margins.

Should the results for Trump hold in all three states, as expected, the president-elect would have 306 electoral votes to 232 for Democrat Hillary Clinton. It takes 270 to be elected president.

Only if the results were overturned in all three states would Clinton have a claim on the presidency, and that is widely considered to be out of the question.

If it's any consolation for Clinton — and it's probably mighty little — she's winning the national popular vote. With some votes still being counted, she is ahead by more than 2 million, about 1.5 percent of the total counted so far.

Trump, in a series of weekend tweets complaining about the Midwest recount efforts, said the Green Party was engaged in a "scam to fill up their coffers" and that "defeated & demoralized Dems" were joining in.

Stirring the post-election pot, Trump made his own unsubstantiated claim of widespread voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California, saying without evidence that he would have won the popular vote if millions of people had not voted illegally.

Stein, who won 1.4 million votes nationwide or about 1 percent of the count, signaled her determination to keep pushing the Midwest recount efforts, saying that "Americans deserve a voting system we can trust." As of Monday, she had raised $6.2 million to finance recounts, according to her campaign website.

"After a presidential election tarnished by the use of outdated and unreliable machines and accusations of irregularities and hacks, people of all political persuasions are asking if our election results are reliable," she said in a statement.

There is no evidence that voter results were hacked or that electronic voting machines were compromised.

The Clinton campaign, which declined to initiate recounts on its own, said over the weekend it would participate in the recounts requested by Stein "to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides," in the words of campaign lawyer Marc Elias.

Stein's campaign said she would file a petition Wednesday for a Michigan recount, after which Trump would have seven days to file objections. Trump's margin of victory in the state was a slim 0.22 percent of the total vote.

Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said a recount would be "a waste of time and disrespectful to all Michigan voters."

Chris Thomas, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections, said the recount would begin as early as Friday to meet a Dec. 13 deadline. Under state policy, the recount will be conducted by hand.

He said election officials have heard a lot this year about "so-called fraud ... without any foundation in fact," and a recount settling that question could provide one "silver lining."

In Wisconsin, meanwhile, the state elections commission on Monday approved a timeline to start a recount on Thursday. Stein is pushing for a hand count of the nearly 3 million ballots cast in the state, but the commission left it up to local election officials to determine the best method.

Stein's Wisconsin recount request included an affidavit from University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman stating that a hand recount is the only way to determine whether there could have been a cyberattack that affected the results. He argued that records stored in electronic voting equipment could have been manipulated in an attack.

The AP on Monday updated its election night vote count in Wisconsin to correct the totals for both candidates in three separate counties. The updates dropped Trump's margin over Clinton from 27,257 votes to 22,460 votes, or 0.8 percent of the total vote. The corrections were made during the regular post-election canvass of the election-night vote.

In Pennsylvania, where Trump edged Clinton by about 71,000 votes, or about 1 percent of the vote, Stein filed a lawsuit seeking a statewide recount but it wasn't clear if the courts had the authority to order one.

Democratic Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said there was no evidence of voting irregularities or cyberattacks on Pennsylvania's voting machines, 96 percent of which record votes electronically and leave no paper trail.

AP Writers Julie Bykowicz in Washington, David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Mark Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report. </s> (JTA) — Jill Stein, the presidential nominee of the Green Party, has requested a full hand count of Michigan’s presidential vote.

Stein made the request on Wednesday in the state where President-elect Donald Trump defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by less than 11,000 votes, or two-tenths of one percent of the state’s nearly 4.8 million votes.

Stein, who is Jewish, has already requested vote recounts in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, Trump defeated Clinton by some 22,000 votes. In Pennsylvania, Trump defeated Clinton by about 71,000 votes, or one percent of all votes cast.

Trump currently leads Clinton in the Electoral College by 306 to 232. Clinton leads Trump in the popular vote by more than 2.3 million votes.

It is unlikely that the recounts will overturn the election’s results. </s> (CNN) Donald Trump surpassed the necessary 270 votes in the Electoral College on Monday, taking the next step in the official process to become President.

Trump received 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 227. Seven "faithless" electors voted for other candidates, costing Trump two votes and Clinton four. Hawaii's votes -- three for Clinton and one breaking from the state's results and supporting Bernie Sanders -- were the last to be counted.

The results mean Trump -- who lost the popular vote by more than 2 percentage points to Clinton -- easily staved off a long-shot bid by opponents to turn Republican electors against him.

The Electoral College results will be officially certified January 6 during a joint session of Congress.

"This election represents a movement that millions of hard working men and women all across the country stood behind and made possible. With this historic step we can look forward to the bright future ahead. I will work hard to unite our country and be the president of all Americans. Together, we will make America great again," Trump said in a statement.

He also claimed his win was "a historic electoral landslide victory in our nation's democracy," though Clinton actually won the popular vote by about 3 million ballots nationwide making Trump the worst-performing winner in the popular vote since 1876.

Trump was put over the top by electors in Texas. Thirty-six of the state's 38 went for Trump, while two ignored the state's Election Day results. One voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and one backed former Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

The first response from Trump's camp came from Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who tweeted: "Congratulations to @RealDonaldTrump; officially elected President of the United States today by the Electoral College!"

Pence also wrote, "I'm honored & humbled to be officially elected today as the next Vice President of the United States of America by the Electoral College."

In Washington state, four electors opted for other candidates, instead of backing Hillary Clinton. Three cast ballots for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one backed Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American activist who's been involved in the North Dakota pipeline fight.

Those Washington electors also picked a mixed bag for the vice presidency. One voted for home-state Sen. Maria Cantwell. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine each got votes, as well. And one went to activist Winona LaDuke, Ralph Nader's running mate as the 2000 Green Party nominee for vice president.

This is the first US presidential election since 1872 with more than one "faithless elector."

Former President Bill Clinton cast his ballot for his wife as an elector in the state of New York.

"As an elector from my home state of New York, I've never been more proud to cast a vote than my vote today for @HillaryClinton," he tweeted.

When all the votes were counted in November, the President-elect won 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232. Some have since called on electors to vote against their state results, after Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots nationwide.

The 538 men and women voted primarily in accordance with the results from November in their state. The electors, chosen by state parties of the candidate who carried each state, convened in all 50 state capitals and the District of Columbia.

While electors are technically chosen to independently cast their ballots for president, both precedent and, in most cases, state laws require them to abide by the people's vote in each state.

After a fraught election, some have called on electors to vote against their state results.

In Minnesota, one elector was disqualified after declaring he would vote for someone other than his state's winner, Clinton. Under state law, he was replaced, and the alternate voted for Clinton.

Protests had popped up around the country Monday as frustrated Americans sought one last opportunity to stop the candidate they opposed.

But mass defections of electors was always extremely unlikely.

Thirty-seven of Trump's pledged 306 electors would have had to vote against him, becoming so-called "faithless electors," to keep him under the 270 threshold to become President. If Clinton were to reach 270 in that far-fetched scenario, she could have become President. If no candidate reached 270, the House of Representatives would have held a vote when Congress reconvenes in January.

There have been a handful faithless electors in past cycles, though never enough to change the outcome of the race.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, whose state was won by Trump, tweeted a picture of the ballot for electors in his state. It featured a ballot for Trump as President and Mike Pence as vice president.

Elsewhere in the country, Americans protested near electoral voting sites in a last-ditch plea to stop Trump's election, despite the high unlikelihood of success.

In Tallahassee, Florida, protestors began gathering before 10 a.m. outside of the Senate Chamber entrance on the fourth floor of the Florida State Capitol. Asked if he actually expected any outcome other than 29 votes for Trump, Democracy Spring's Maxwell Frost sighed. "I'm hoping for the best," he said. "We'll see what happens."

While Trump has claimed he won in a landslide victory, that description is inaccurate. He is expected to garner just 56.9% of the electoral vote, assuming all electors vote according to their states' results. That will give Trump the 44th-largest share of the electoral vote out of 54 presidential elections since the modern system started in 1804.

The electoral votes will be officially counted on January 6, when Congress returns. Vice President Joe Biden will preside over the count.

Lawmakers can technically object -- in writing, with objections signed by at least one House and one Senate member -- to individual electoral votes or entire states' results. If the House and Senate support that objection, the vote or votes in question are thrown out. But that has never happened.

Trump will be officially set for his inauguration at noon on January 20 once all the electoral votes are counted.
President-elect Donald Trump is declared as the winner in Michigan, causing his electoral college vote to rise to 306. Hillary Clinton's margin in the popular vote rises to over two million.