Donald Trump and his backers have launched formal legal bids to stop recounts in, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan that are being pushed for by failed Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Lawyers for Trump's campaign have entered arguments in Pennsylvania and Michigan - calling Stein's quest a 'farce' - and in the latter, the state attorney general has filed to stop the recount effort he says 'abuses the intent of Michigan law'.

Trump's supporters are taking legal action in Wisconsin where a third recount effort is underway.

Only one Wisconsin county had turned in its new tally on Thursday. Trump lost two votes and Hillary Clinton lost one, netting one additional vote for the Democratic candidate.

Donald Trump (pictured at Carrier Corp in Indianapolis on Thursday) is attempting to block a recount of all 4.8 million ballots cast across Michigan and a recount effort in Pennsylvania. His supporters are opposing a ballot recount in Wisconsin

Green County Clerk Michael Doyle carries ballots to a secure location after being tabulated during the presidential recount at the Green County Courthouse in Monroe, Wisconsin

A recount is already underway in Wisconsin. Workers are pictured looking over absentee ballots in Milwaukee on Thursday, December 1

Officials would have to find at least 22,000 additional discrepancies for Clinton to win. And that's just in Wisconsin.

The Racine-based Journal Times reports that Stein gained 17 votes and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson picked up 12 votes in the recount so far. Those ballots weren't included in the original tally because of 'human error,' the Elections Commission said.

Wisconsin's 72 counties are hand-sorting the 3 million ballots that were cast on Election Day. In the state's second most populous county, Dane, officials said it could take all 12 days they're allotted to count the 300,000 ballots cast.

The Trump-supporting Great America PAC, along with the Stop Hillary PAC and Wisconsin voter Ronald Johnson filed a federal lawsuit arguing that due process is being violated and errors are likely as officials rush to meet a Dec. 13 deadline, the Associated Press reports.

The new actions are an indication of an increasingly organized Republican attempt to stop the recount efforts which are being pushed by Stein but which loser Hillary Clinton's camp are also joining.

Trump is attempting to block a recount of all 4.8 million ballots cast across Michigan - a state he won by 10,000 votes.

Michigan's election board will meet on Friday to consider Trump's call for the recount, which has been requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, to be scrapped.

Lawyers for the Trump campaign argued Thursday Stein cannot seek the expensive, time-consuming recount because she was not 'aggrieved' to the point where potential miscounting of votes could have cost her the election.

They also called the recount 'insulting', 'lawless', and a 'farce', before stating it could create 'constitutional chaos'.

Stein picked up just one percent of the vote in Michigan, leading Trump's team to call her a 'bottom-dwelling candidate'.

Designated observers watch as tabulators work on recounting presidential ballots

Jill Stein (pictured speaking in Boston on October 30) has requested recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania

They also said in their objection Stein waited until the last minute to file her recount petition on Wednesday, making it impossible to finish by a December 13 deadline.

And Politico disclosed that Bill Schuette, the state's attorney-general, a Republican, is filing a lawsuit to stop the recount.

'Michigan voters rejected Stein's candidacy by massive margins but her refusal to accept that state-verified result poses an expensive and risky threat to hard-working taxpayers and abuses the intent of Michigan law,' he said.

'It is inexcusable for Stein to put Michigan voters at risk of paying millions and potentially losing their voice in the Electoral College in the process.'

In Pennsylvania Trump's camp pushed back on Thursday afternoon, saying that Stein was 'no more than a blip on the electoral radar' who had 'commandeered' the electoral process and had 'an eye to doing the same to the Electoral College'.

Pennsylvania's recount can only be ordered by the state supreme court, which has scheduled a hearing for Monday.

Stein's camp claim that voting machines in the state could have been hacked - something the Trump campaign said was being claimed without evidence or even allegation that it happened.

She countered that Trump's 'cynical efforts to delay the recount and create unnecessary costs for taxpayers are shameful and outrageous.'

The president-elect's objections suspended the planned Friday start of the recount until next week.

The Wisconsin filing initiated by Trump supporters says that Stein has 'no prospect' of winning that state or any other.

It calls the recount effort a 'fundraising stunt' for Stein, who's 'acting as a stalking horse' for Hillary Clinton, WBAY reports.

Tabulator Claudette Moll, right, from Farmington, looks over a ballot during a statewide presidential election recount Thursday in West Bend, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin filing initiated by Trump supporters says that Stein has 'no prospect' of winning that state or any other

Stein received 31,006 votes in Wisconsin. Trump beat Clinton by roughly 22,000 ballots in the state.

The Republican presidential nominee routinely called the validity of the election into question in the lead-up to the vote, repeatedly claiming it was 'rigged'. He continued to push the same line this week, when he claimed millions of people voted illegally - despite there being no evidence to prove his point.

A recount is already underway in Wisconsin, where the first reporting of numbers is expected today.

In Pennsylvania, a hearing was scheduled for Monday on Stein's push to secure a court-ordered statewide recount, a legal maneuver that has never been tried, according to one of the attorneys who filed it.

Recounts were not expected to flip nearly enough votes to change the outcome in any of the states.

Filing calls the recount effort a 'fundraising stunt' for Stein, who's 'acting as a stalking horse' for Hillary Clinton

The Wisconsin recount doesn't carry nearly the same drama as the Florida recount in 2000, when the outcome of the presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush hung in the balance.

'This is certainly not Bush v. Gore,' said Mike Haas, Wisconsin's chief elections administrator.

Even so, the campaigns for Trump, Clinton and Stein all had observers spread throughout the state to watch the process.

The recount will have to move quickly. The federal deadline to certify the vote to avoid having the fate of Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes decided by Congress is December 13.

Even if that were to happen, the votes would almost certainly go to Trump, since Republicans control both chambers of Congress.

Ballots are stacked up behind a door as a statewide presidential election recount gets underway on Thursday in Wisconsin

Stein has argued, without evidence, that irregularities in the votes in all three states suggest that there could have been tampering with the vote, perhaps through a well-coordinated, highly complex cyberattack.

'Verifying the vote through this recount is the only way to confirm that every vote has been counted securely and accurately and is not compromised by machine or human error, or by tampering or hacking,' Stein said.

Stein's critics, including the Wisconsin Republican Party, contend that she is a little-known candidate who is merely trying to raise her profile while raising millions of dollars.

The Wisconsin recount was estimated to cost about $3.9 million.

Stein paid $973,250 for the requested recount in Michigan. Michigan's Republican secretary of state, Ruth Johnson, has said a recount could cost $5 million total.