Kalamazoo County Election Recounts

The Kalamazoo Expo Center, photographed on Monday, Dec. 5, 2016 in Kalamazoo, Mich., prepares for recounts of ballots in Kalamazoo County regarding the Nov. 8 presidential election. (Chelsea Purgahn/Kalamazoo Gazette)

(Chelsea Purgahn)

The Kalamazoo Expo Center, photographed on Monday, Dec. 5, 2016 in Kalamazoo, Mich., prepares for recounts of ballots in Kalamazoo County regarding the Nov. 8 presidential election. (Chelsea Purgahn/Kalamazoo Gazette)

KALAMAZOO, MI -- Forced to move quickly after a federal judge's ruling came down shortly after midnight Monday, the Kalamazoo County Clerk's Office gathered workers to recount 126,000 votes cast in the presidential race.

Clerk Tim Snow said 200 volunteers were enlisted in order to comply with U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith's ruling to begin a statewide recount at noon on Monday, Dec. 5. Ingham and Oakland counties will begin recounting its ballots today, while Kalamazoo, Kent, Macomb, Ottawa, Washtenaw and Wayne counties will follow Tuesday morning. Other counties are scheduled to begin from Dec. 7 to Dec. 12.

"We didn't know we would be asked to start right away," Snow said. "That's fine, we're getting ready to go now."

Kalamazoo County will start recounting its ballots at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the county Expo Center at 2900 Lake St. Snow said for eight hours a day, volunteers will count votes from 108 precincts and 98 absentee ballot counting sites. He expects the tally to be finished by Friday afternoon.

READ MORE: Click here for a full schedule of county recounts

Teams of volunteers will reopen ballot bags sealed on election night and hand count each vote individually. After making sure the number of ballots matches election day totals, the votes are recounted and sorted by candidate.

Write-in candidates will not be counted.

The results will be reported at another station and recorded in a spreadsheet that compares any changes from election night. Observers and challengers can be close to the tables where the workers are tabulating votes, but are not allowed to touch the ballots.

Kalamazoo County's first tally reported Democrat Hillary Clinton with 53 percent of the 126,301 votes in Kalamazoo County, to President-elect Donald Trump's 40 percent. Trump defeated Clinton by 10,704 votes in Michigan.

"I don't expect any significant change," Snow said.

Goldsmith sided with Green Party Candidate Jill Stein, who requested to speed up the date of the recount to immediately after the Board of State Canvassers finalized votes.

Stein was required to pay $125 per precinct for the recount, a total of $973,250. However, Snow said his volunteers will be paid $100-$125 per day, and various other costs means the recount could cost Kalamazoo County more than the $13,500 it received from Stein.

"It's really tough to estimate (the cost)," Snow said. "Hopefully (the reimbursement) will cover our expenses; if not the county will pay and that's just the way it works."

This year, 65.6 percent of Kalamazoo County's registered voters cast ballots in the November general election. A higher rate of registered residents voted than in 2012, 64 percent, but a lower rate than in 2008, 68.7 percent.

A total of 30,082 residents voted via absentee ballot.

More residents voted for a third-party candidate than in 2012. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 5,644 votes, followed by Stein, 1,634, and U.S. Taxpayers candidate Darrell L. Castle and Natural Law Party candidate Emidio Mimi Soltysik.