I will order ‘major investigation’ into voter fraud: Trump

US President Donald Trump has said that he will order a "major investigation" into voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.

"I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and....even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time),” Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

“Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!" added Trump, who claimed in an earlier statement that he would have won the popular vote if it were not for the millions of “illegal” immigrants who voted for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

The Republican billionaire, who was inaugurated on Friday as the 45th president of the US, scored about 3 million votes less than 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 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.

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

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

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 Democratic allegations.   

Sanders vows to fight against 'voter suppression'

Meanwhile, former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Wednesday vowed to fight back against what he called voter suppression.

The Vermont senator said Trump is telling Republicans to "accelerate voter suppression, to make it harder for the poor, young, elderly and people of color to vote."

"The great political crisis we face is not voter fraud, which barely exists. It's voter suppression and the denial of voting rights," he tweeted.

"Our job is to fight back, and do everything we can to protect American democracy from cowardly Republican governors and legislators,” said Sanders, who many observers say was robbed of  the Democratic presidential nomination by the pro-Clinton Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Sanders ran a close race with Clinton during the primaries and promised to continue the fight all the way, but towards the end of the race he changed his tone and bowed out in favor of the former secretary of state. 

According to a pre-election poll, Sanders would have beaten Trump by a large margin if he had been the Democratic nominee instead of Clinton.

WikiLeaks said in a statement after the November election that Trump won because Democrats rigged the system to have Clinton beat Sanders.

Sanders could have won the election but the Democratic National Committee stopped him from doing so by pushing him out from the primary race, the whistleblowing agency said in a statement published on its website.

WikiLeaks claimed that the Democratic Party establishment conspired to ensure Clinton win the party’s presidential nomination. In doing so it chose a weaker candidate who lost the election against Trump, the agency suggested.

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