News / Politics

Vice President Pence will head voter fraud investigation: Trump

Monday, 06 February 2017 5:22 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 06 February 2017 5:49 AM ]

US Vice President Mike Pence arrives to swear in Rex Tillerson as the America's 69th secretary of state on February 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

US President Donald Trump has said that he will establish a special commission to investigate voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election, and Vice President Mike Pence will head it.

“I’m going to set up a commission to be headed by Vice President Mike Pence and we’re going to look at it very, very carefully,” Trump told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly in an interview on Sunday afternoon.

“Look, Bill, we can be babies, but you take a look at the registration. You have illegals, you have dead people... It’s really a bad situation. It’s really bad,” he said.

The US president made the remarks when asked about criticism that his claims of massive voter fraud were not supported by the data collected by the media.

“Many people have come out and said I’m right. You know that,” Trump said.

The Republican billionaire, who was inaugurated last month as the 45th president of the US, scored about 3 million votes less than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in their November 8 face-off. However, he was able to seal the victory by winning the Electoral College vote, 304-227.

In the run-up to the presidential election, Trump repeatedly accused the mainstream media of bias for not covering “a large-scale voter fraud” underway during early voting across the country. In addition, he called the election process rigged, and said the media was colluding with Clinton in order to beat him.

According to Trump, there were “serious voter fraud” issues in three US states -- Virginia, New Hampshire and California -- during the election, but the mainstream American media ignored it.

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Trump has repeatedly stated that “millions of people” voted illegally and that he would have won the popular vote if those "illegal" votes were discounted.

According to Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former campaign adviser and current counselor, Trump had been “receiving information” about people voting illegally.

Days after his inauguration on January 20, Trump said he would order a “major investigation” into fraudulent votes by as many as 3 to 5 million illegal immigrants.

People vote on the US presidential election at Santa Monica City Hall on November 8, 2016 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by AFP)

Vice President Pence promised to lawmakers at the annual Republican retreat in Philadelphia on January 26 that the administration would launch a “full evaluation” of voting rolls nationwide, The Washington Post reported.

The outcome of the 2016 US presidential vote has also been questioned by Democrats, who have blamed their defeat on foreign influence, particularly on the alleged Russian intervention in the election in favor of Trump. Russia has strongly rejected the allegations.

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