LANSING, MI -- Michigan's Board of State Canvassers voted 3-1 Wednesday evening to preemptively halt the presidential recount process should a federal judge move to dissolve the order that allowed the recount to start in the first place.

The motion approved by the board, put forward by Republican canvasser Colleen Pero, instructs Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas to put a stop to the recount if U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith dissolves a temporary restraining order on the two-day waiting period required by state law after an objection to the recount is filed.

The decision came after board members waited around for most of Wednesday for a fresh ruling from the U.S. District Court. Goldsmith held a hearing on the recount Wednesday, but had not filed a ruling when the Board of State Canvassers made its decision.

It also comes in the aftermath of a state Court of Appeals decision issued late Tuesday that instructed the Board of State Canvassers to reject the recount petition, ruling Green Party candidate Jill Stein was not sufficiently "aggrieved" under state law to request a recount.

Pero said the motion was not speculative, but rather an effort to prevent the waste and hassle of activating the recount process for another day in counties throughout the state if the board ends up having to halt the recount anyway.

Democratic canvasser Julie Matuzak was the deciding vote in the matter, but she wasn't happy about what went down.

Matuzak and fellow Democratic canvasser Jeanette Bradshaw supported a motion to adjourn the meeting and take up the matter again at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, when the board has another meeting scheduled. That proposal was shot down in a 2-2 deadlock along party lines.

"The plan was to hold this out, keep us here, not take an actual stand here on this issue, and I find that difficult to deal with," she said, adding that she felt her only two options were to vote yes on the motion or walk out of the meeting altogether.

"My Republican colleagues are being disingenuous about this whole thing," Matuzak continued. "It was clear that they were going to hold us hostage here until they got their way."

Stein attorney Mark Brewer expressed disappointment with the board's decision, saying there's going to be "chaos" if the judge's ruling is conditional or if there are different interpretations of what the ruling means.

"The board could have waited until they got a ruling, talked to their lawyers like they usually do, and made a decision," Brewer said.

Late Tuesday evening, the state Court of Appeals ruled the Board of State Canvassers should reject Stein's request for a recount petition on grounds that Stein is not an "aggrieved" candidate under state law, an argument President-elect Donald Trump's attorneys and Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette have made throughout the process.

The state court's ruling came shortly after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in a 2-1 decision U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith's Monday ruling allowing the recount to proceed immediately. In the circuit court ruling, the federal court determined the order issued by Goldsmith could be dismissed if state courts ruled the recount to be out of order with state law.

Following the state Court of Appeals ruling, Schuette said in a statement he would file a motion in federal court seeking to dissolve the temporary restraining order on a two-day waiting period built into state law if objections to a recount filing occur.

Last week, the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked in a 2-2 vote along party lines over accepting the Trump campaign's objections to the recount. Because there was no majority, the recount process was allowed to proceed.

The recount in Michigan began Monday at noon in Ingham and Oakland counties after a U.S. District Court ruling ordered it begin immediately.

According to results certified by the Board of State Canvassers last month, Trump beat Clinton in Michigan by 10,704 votes. Stein earned 1.07 percent of the statewide vote.