President-elect Donald Trump declared Sunday he would have won the popular vote if “illegal” votes were discounted.
{mosads}“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 on Twitter.
The president-elect also tweeted that he would have won more easily if he had based his campaign strategy on winning the popular vote, instead of visiting states with a larger number of Electoral College votes.
Trump’s second series of tweets Sunday came as Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein’s campaign said it would file for a recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania, after making an effort in Wisconsin official. All three states are traditionally blue states that Trump won.
Trump’s claim of voter fraud drew immediate criticism from social media, with some mocking him and others pointing out the lack of evidence supporting his claim of illegal voting.
Internet fact-checker Snopes has said the claim that 3 million noncitizens voted illegally, which has been pushed by controversial Infowars radio host Alex Jones, is unproven.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump predicted that the recount effort in three states will not change the results of the election.
“Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change,” he tweeted.
Clinton’s campaign is participating in the Wisconsin recount, which is set to begin later this week.
Clinton is currently leading Trump by more than 2 million in the popular vote. Politicians, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have called for an examination of using the Electoral College to decide who wins the presidency, rather than the popular vote.
Trump warned during his campaign that the election could be rigged, though election officials scoffed at the claim, noting the country’s use of a decentralized system in which ballots are counted by thousands of Democratic and Republican officials across the country.
The group of election lawyers and computer scientists pushing the recount effort said election results in the three states could have been manipulated or hacked.