Fact check: Clinton vote claims under scrutiny

The New York senator is using such claims to shore up supporters and help justify why she's still in the Democratic presidential race despite trailing Obama in the number of convention delegates earned in primaries and caucuses.

The argument is supported only by using dubious math on two fronts: by excluding several caucus states won by Obama and by including Florida and Michigan primary results that the Democratic Party, to date, is rejecting.

THE SPIN:

"I'm very proud that as of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else," she said after her narrow Indiana victory and before her big win in West Virginia on Tuesday. "It's a very close race, but if you count, as I count, the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that."

Since then, Clinton has tempered her claim of being ahead in votes, although her aides have not.

"I think I've now been privileged to receive the votes of 17 million Americans, and that's pretty much the same as Senator Obama," she said Wednesday on CNN.

Her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, went farther Wednesday: "We are ahead in the popular vote -I cannot stress this enough."

THE FACTS:

Obama is ahead of Clinton by just over 618,000 votes out of 32.2 million cast in states and territories where both candidates competed and where the popular vote was counted in some way.