Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday criticized Republican objections to the Wisconsin recount effort, arguing that the move is within legal rights and fairly common after elections.
"We have recounts, probably almost every election there's a recount," Sanders, I-Vt., said on CNN. "No one expects there to be profound change but there's nothing wrong with going through the process."
Wisconsin election officials accepted Green Party candidate Jill Stein's petition for a statewide recount, which is slated to begin late next week. The recount planhas drawn scorn from President-elect Donald Trump and his surrogates.
Related: Election Recount to Begin in Wisconsin Following Green Party Petition, Officials Say
When asked about senior adviser Kellyanne Conway's tweets that decried Hillary Clinton supporters for challenging the results after pressuring Trump to do the same during the general election, Sanders replied that "nobody cares."
Instead, the former presidential contender asserted, the focus should be on holding Trump to his campaign promises on Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
"The Green Party has the legal right," Sanders said. "The Republicans have requested, I think the governor of North Carolina right now is thinking about doing a recount (in his race). That's a legal right. They do it. I don't think that Hillary Clinton, who got two million more votes than Mr. Trump in the popular election, thinks that it's going to transform the election. But do people have the legal right to do it? Yeah, we do."
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