Kathleen Gray, and Paul Egan

Detroit Free Press

LANSING — The Michigan Board of Canvassers, with a 4-0 vote, certified the state's election results Monday, showing Republican Donald Trump won the presidential race in the state by a 10,704-vote margin over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The Board of Canvassers' certification makes the election results official, but it also starts the 48-hour clock for Jill Stein, the Green Party's presidential candidate, to seek a recount. Stein has raised more than $6.5 million to pay for recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. It won’t be cheap, and it will be a monumental task for the secretary of state and 83 county clerks around the state.

She has already filed the recount requests for Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Mark Brewer, former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party and lawyer for Stein, told the Board of Canvassers that he intends to file a request for Stein by Wednesday's 2 p.m. deadline to recount all the presidential votes cast in the state.

"Jill Stein will be filing a petition with this board for a manual recount of the votes cast for president in Michigan. The purpose of this manual recount is to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the election," he said. "Every vote must be counted."

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Chris Thomas, the director of elections for the state, noted that Stein received only 51,643 votes — or 1.07% of Michigan's total votes in the presidential race.

"It is odd, to say the least, that a candidate with 1.07% of the vote is seeking a recount," he said. "But under Michigan law, they can do so."

A recount would begin on Friday in the state's 19 largest counties and run all weekend. Surrounding counties will be counted next, with clerks bringing their ballots to a central location to count. Thomas estimated that a full recount of the state, barring any legal objections from other candidates, could be completed by Dec. 9 or 10.

If a recount happens, all the ballots — all 4,799,284 votes in the presidential race — will be counted by hand at the county level under state supervision. It’s a process that will begin within 48 hours of a request coming in, but it may not finish until further into December, because another candidate has seven days to challenge the recount request. The Board of Canvassers will hear arguments on the challenge if it's filed and rule within five days.

A recount would start, but then be paused while the Board of Canvassers resolves the challenge. That would make it difficult for a recount to be done before a Dec. 13 deadline, which is six days before the electoral college — including Michigan's 16 members — will meet on Dec. 19 to cast votes for the winning candidate. The state is still researching how the time line of a recount will affect Michigan's electoral votes, Thomas said.

But he noted that the U.S. Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida in the 2000 election before it was finished in order to make the Dec. 13 deadline, which ultimately made George W. Bush the winner in that election.

If the recount isn't done by Dec. 13, Thomas said, "I think the recount is probably off at that point. They stop the process right there. But that’s a legal issue, and I’m not going to make the final decision."

Under laws passed in Michigan in 2014, which are intended to make it more difficult to recall lawmakers, recounts are costly for the people requesting them. When the margin of the race is less than 0.5%, the cost to recount is $125 per precinct. There are 6,300 precincts in Michigan, which translates into a recount price tag of $787,500.

The actual recount is expected to cost more than $125 per precinct, which puts the final price tag closer to $900,000, Thomas said. Anything over what Stein pays would be borne by the county where the extra cost was incurred.

That's one good reason to call off the recount, said Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party who called on Clinton to urge Stein to stop the election saga.

"Clinton should ask Jill Stein to abide by the election results that were certified today," she said. "Otherwise, it is disenfranchising our voters, costing our taxpayers money when she has no chance of changing the results of the election. It’s an outrage."

Stein said she’s not requesting the recount because she thinks it will change the outcome. Instead, she said in a video on her Facebook page, she picked the three states where the vote was the closest to ensure the integrity of the election. Stein was represented by Brewer at the meeting, while the Trump campaign has hired election law attorneys Gary Gordon and John Pirich to represent him.

The Trump campaign has seven days to file written objections to the recount, but they can't just challenge the recount based on the likelihood that the results will not change, Thomas said.

The Board of State Canvassers would hold a hearing on the objections and have to issue a ruling within five days of the hearing. The Secretary of State's Office said it would schedule meetings of the Board of Canvassers almost daily during a recount, just in case issues come up that need to be dealt with by the board.

The board has four members. By law, two are Republicans and two are Democrats. Board member Julie Matuzak, one of the Democratic appointees, said she favors a hand recount of all the ballots. If the Trump campaign files an objection asking for a machine recount of the votes, the board would rule on the objection; if they deadlock 2-2 on the matter, the current policy of using a hand recount would stand.

"An environment of suspicion about the election has been created, and I think a hand recount is a way that we can go about restoring confidence in our election system," she said, referring to Trump's allegations that the election system is rigged.

Pirich said he believes the votes should be recounted by voting machines to make sure the recount is done in a timely manner. The chances of completing a recount before a Dec. 13 deadline "are impossible or incredibly unlikely to be successful," he said.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal