Clinton leads Trump in final popular vote count

Washington, Dec 21: Former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has taken a lead over President-elect Donald Trump by nearly three million popular votes in the final count, according to an official report.

The report released by the non-partisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday showed that all of the 50 US states plus the Washington District of Columbia, the capital city of the US, had certified their vote count results, Xinhua news agency reported.

The former secretary of state garnered 65,844,610 votes and 48.2 per cent, compared to Trump's 62,979,636 votes and 46.6 per cent. Their gap in popular vote is 2,864,974, its data showed. 

Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party Candidate Jill Stein and all write-ins altogether, took 7,804,213 popular votes and 5.7 per cent.

Although Clinton captured nearly as many votes as President Barack Obama did to win in 2012, she lost the electoral college by a wide margin. 

On Monday, Trump officially secured his future four-year presidency by winning 304 Electoral College votes to Clinton's 227.

Only two out of 306 Republican electors across the country cast their votes for alternatives, while five Democratic electors defected from Clinton to other options like Colin Powell, Bernie Sanders and "Faith Spotted Eagle", a native environmental activist.

A week after his historic election victory on November 8, Trump tweeted: "The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!" 

However, four years ago, Trump tweeted: "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy", in response to President Obama's re-election against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

In the year of 2000, the then-Vice President Al Gore earned about 500,000 more votes over Republican nominee George W.Bush. At that time, it was the largest advantage in the popular vote for a candidate who lost the Electoral College vote in the U.S. presidential election.

Clinton is the fifth presidential nominee to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote in the US history.