Jill Stein could be on the hook for millions of dollars to cover the cost of a Michigan election recount if a Republican-sponsored bill is enacted into law.

HB 6097 would require candidates more than 5 percent of the vote behind the winner to pay the entire actual cost of a statewide recount, and it would be retroactive to the beginning of 2016.

It would only apply to statewide and federal offices.

House Elections Committee Chair Lisa Lyons, R-Alto, introduced the bill last week and it passed out of that committee on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

All five Republicans on the committee approved moving the bill forward. Democrats Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, and Jon Hoadley, D-Kalamazoo, voted against it and Democrat Gretchen Driskell, D-Saline, abstained.

A recount of Michigan's vote in the Nov. 8 presidential election began Monday. Stein, the Green Party's presidential candidate, is paying a required fee of $973,250, but Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson has said the actual cost could be $2 million or more.

Michigan Republican Party officials believe the full cost could be much higher. Eric Doster, an attorney for the state party, said the cost could reach up to $12 million.

"This legislation would protect taxpayers from frivolous recounts," Lyons said during a committee hearing Tuesday morning. "Candidates should have the right to ask for a recount, but they should have the responsibility to pay for it, especially if the outcome is unlikely to change.

"We're just asking to protect taxpayers from frivolous recounts," Lyons said.

Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, questioned making the proposed law retroactive, saying it was unfair "to change the rules in the middle of the game."

But his amendment to make the change effective in April 2017 was defeated on a 5-3 party-line vote.

Irwin also questioned the presumption "that the only important outcome in a recount is an actual change in the election."

He argued the current recount is serving as an important "audit" of the process that could uncover fraud as well as "simple incompetence" by election officials.

"Sometimes when we do these recounts, we find irregularities that are worth looking into," Irwin said.

"There has been a lot of concern expressed in this committee about voter fraud. Most of the concern on our side of the aisle is about fraud by officials. This gives us a chance to see if somebody is putting their thumb on the scale," he said.

Under current law, any candidate on the ballot can file for a recount and pays a fee on a pay scale depending on the closeness of the vote. If the official canvass of the votes shows the candidate seeking the recount lost by more than 50 votes or half of 1 percent of total votes, the candidate pays $125 per precinct. Otherwise, the candidate seeking the recount would pay $25 per precinct.

Stein's campaign has said it is working with the Board of State Canvassers to get an accurate estimate of total statewide recount costs and finding out where it could contribute beyond the legal obligations.