This is Michigan ' s procedure on recounts . They have a low fee $ 25 per precinct if you ' re challenging a close election , and a much larger fee $ 125 per precinct if you ' re challenging a notclose election . 1 The fee is also refunded if the result of the election changes . As to why they might have this scheme , my guess would be to deter frivolous recount requests which waste taxpayer money . It ' s also important to note that a recount isn ' t something that ' s done as of right , but is there for looking into fraud or mistake , with the intention that a campaign would have identified a few locations where something doesn ' t seem right . A statewide I don ' t like the results recount is therefore much more expensive than a hey , that precinct returned more votes than it has registered voters recount which would be more narrowly focused . 1 Based on my reading Stein would be stuck paying the notclose fee because while the actual result is close , it refers to how close the challenging candidate was and Stein got very few votes .