Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead over Donald Trump surpasses 2.5 million

Hillary Clinton has reportedly received at least 2.5 million more votes than Donald Trump in the US election.

Despite losing the crucial electoral college tally 232 to Mr Trump’s 306 and conceding after the November 8 polling day, Ms Clinton is leading the way in the popular vote, the Independent reports.

Ms Clinton has 65,250,000 votes compared to the President-elect’s 62,686,000 votes, the newspaper reports.

The surprising results are reportedly due to the late counting of absentee votes in a number of states including California and New York.

Mr Trump is the fifth president to lose the popular vote in US history.

The outcome has sparked debate over the historic electoral college.  

More than four million people have signed an online petition calling to abolish the process, which uses 538 nominated electors from across the country to determine the winning Presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, some Trump supporters have moved to maintain his narrow victories in three states, pursuing legal challenges aimed at halting the Green Party's requests for long-shot recounts of the presidential votes there.

READ MORE: Lawsuits pending in three US states to block election vote recount