During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly suggested that American elections might be so tainted by fraud that a victory could be stolen from him. That innuendo raised hackles among critics who worried that Trump was laying the groundwork to shake faith in the foundations of U.S. democracy.
Then two strange things happened: First, Trump beat even his own team’s expectations and won. Second, he’s now questioning the validity of election counts anyway. Over the last few days, Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced she was filing for a recount in Wisconsin, citing suggestions of irregularities in the vote. Hillary Clinton’s campaign then said it would participate as well. That didn’t sit well with Trump:
He added:
Trump’s statements are baseless and misleading. It is not just, as many (though not enough) news organizations reported, that Trump provided no evidence for this. There simply isn’t any evidence for it. It isn’t real. Activists who insist there is voter fraud say it’s impossible to prove a negative, which is of course true, but repeated scientific studies have failed to pinpoint anything resembling fraud on the scale that would affect national, or even state-wide, elections.
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