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ODU professor wants President Trump to stop citing, misquoting his research

Posted at 6:21 PM, Jan 26, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-26 22:30:11-05

NORFOLK, Va. - Jesse Richman, an associate professor of Political Science at Old Dominion University, has a message for President Donald Trump and his administration.

"I wish he'd stop citing my research, frankly," he said.

This comes following the president's latest claims that non-citizens voting at the polls could have influenced the outcome of November's popular vote when nearly 3 million more people cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton.

During his Tuesday press briefing White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer alluded to the possibility when talking with reporters about voter fraud.

"I think there's been studies.There's one that came out of Pew in 2008 that shows 14 percent of people voting were non-citizens," Spicer said.

Richman tells News 3 that Spicer was not only confusing another study with his own from 2014, but also exaggerating the numbers.

He says while his study did find evidence that some non-citizens do vote...it's not nearly enough to make up the difference in the most recent popular vote.

"Maybe 100,000 (ballots), maybe a little more to the Hillary Clinton margin. Not insignificant, but on the other hand, way below the kind of levels of fraud that Trump is alleging," said Richman.

Richman believes an investigation into voter fraud would prove that.

News 3 reached out to the White House for comment on this story, but has not heard back.