green party jill stein in detroit-010

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks to a crowd at BurtaEUs Theatre in DetroitaEUs Eastern Market Saturday, Sept. 2, 2016. (Tanya Moutzalias | MLive Detroit)

(Tanya Moutzalias)

With a presidential election ballot recount request from Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the works, state officials are preparing an aggressive schedule to count every ballot cast in Michigan by hand -- although several variables could still stall or put a halt to the process.

Former Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer, who is representing Jill Stein in her quest to get Michigan's ballots recounted, told the Board of State Canvassers Monday that Stein is fully prepared to file a petition by the Wednesday afternoon deadline to get the recount started.

No concrete evidence of significant error or tampering to the election process has been found so far, Brewer said, but he argued that concerns of machines vulnerable to error or manipulation, a significant increase in voters who cast a ballot but did not vote for a presidential candidate and reports of hacking election-related data throughout the country make a statewide recount worth it.

"There's a possibility of fraud, there's a possibility of manipulation," Brewer said. "The only way to eliminate that is to do a manual recount."

If the petition is filed by the Wednesday deadline, state officials plan to kick off a recount process that would begin either Friday, Dec. 2 or Saturday, Dec. 3 with Michigan's 19 largest counties and continue to smaller counties over the next week.

The ballots would be recounted in designated areas throughout the state, most likely in large facilities to accommodate those counting the ballots and volunteers for campaigns wishing to observe the process, Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas said.

In the event of a recount, the state will be working against the clock. Thomas said the Secretary of State is working under the legal assumption that recount results must be in before Dec. 13, six days before members of the Electoral College cast their votes on Dec. 19.

"Anytime you have a 10 to 12-day period to do a statewide recount, there's a lot of things that hopefully will not go wrong," said Chris Thomas, Michigan's director of elections. "It's going to have to move right along."

Gary Gordon and John Pirich, Trump's attorneys in the Michigan recount effort, did not indicate Monday whether they would file an objection to the petition on Trump's behalf. They called for any recount effort to use voting machines instead of counting the ballots by hand in the interest of time, arguing a full statewide recount likely isn't possible by the time the Electoral College meets.

Should an objection on the form of the recount process be filed, Thomas said the state is obligated to stop the recount and wait for the objection to be heard and ruled upon by the Board of State Canvassers, then wait an additional two business days before resuming.

Thomas said the vote recount would likely cost more than the amount Stein is required to pay under state law, which amounts to just under $790,000 for a recount of every Michigan precinct. Any cost above the $125 per precinct paid for by Stein's fundraising efforts would be incurred by the counties.

Final election results certified Monday by the Board of State Canvassers show Republican Donald Trump won in Michigan with 47.59 percent of the vote, with Democrat Hillary Clinton just behind him with 47.36 percent of the vote. Stein earned 1.07 percent of the vote in Michigan.

Michigan Republican Party Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said the results are clear -- Trump won. She said the recount effort is an "outrage" to Michigan voters and taxpayers and called on Clinton and Stein to put a stop to it.

"This will cost our taxpayers, it will cost our counties, it will take time -- it's disenfranchising our voters," Romney McDaniel said. "There's no evidence of fraud. Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein should make sure that this recount does not happen."

Scott Hagerstrom, Trump's Michigan campaign director, wouldn't go that far, noting that it's Stein's right as a candidate to request a recount. Hagerstrom said he wasn't sure there would be sufficient time for a full statewide recount regardless, but added that even if one is completed, he doesn't believe the end result will change.

"Here in Michigan, we counted the votes, and we believe the final tally represents the will of the people," he said.

Stein announced her intentions to call for recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan last week and has raised more than $6 million of a $7 million goal to fund recount costs and legal fees in all three states. The Clinton campaign is also expected to participate in the process.