NEW YORK, Nov 27 (APP): Republican President-elect Donald Trump has described an impending recount of votes in the U.S. state of Wisconsin as a “scam”.
In a statement, Trump, who narrowly won the state, said the results “should be respected instead of being challenged or abused”.
The recount has been requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The state has until the federal deadline of December 13 to complete the recount process and announce the final results.
“This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn’t even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” Trump said in a statement on Saturday.
Stein has raised millions of dollars for her push in just more than a week. She has called for an audit and recount of voting results in Michigan and Pennsylvania as well over fears that hackers might have manipulated the voting machines.
“All three states were won by large numbers of voters, especially Pennsylvania, which was won by more than 70,000 votes,” Trump said.
“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” the president-elect added.
The Hillary Clinton campaign, which had kept quiet about Stein’s crusade, said it would now back her efforts to review the voting results in order to ensure a “fair” process for all involved.
“Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves,” campaign lawyer Marc Elias said.
“But now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.”
Clinton won the overall popular vote by around 2 million ballots in the Nov. 8 presidential election. However, Trump clinched most of the key battleground states in play, albeit by narrow margins.
“It is important to point out that with the help of millions of voters across the country, we won 306 electoral votes on Election Day – the most of any Republican since 1988 and we carried nine of 13 battleground states, 30 of 50 states, and more than 2,600 counties nationwide – the most since President Ronald Reagan in 1984,” Trump said in his statement.
Earlier this week, speculation that electronic voting in key states might have been hacked prompted Clinton supporters to urge her to contest the election results.
