1. Stein filed for a recount in Michigan, and the MI board of election canvassers deadlocked 2-2 on whether to authorize it. Because of the tie vote the recount was going to proceed.
2. Michigan law said the recount would start on Wednesday, December 7th.
3. Stein filed a petition in Federal court asking to court to order the recount to start on Monday (December 5th) in order to protect the interests of the Michigan voters.
4. The Michigan attorney general opposed this petition in the judge's hearing on Sunday, on the grounds that the AG had filed a suit in state court to stop the recount anyway.
5. IMPORTANT: In the Sunday hearing, the judge asked the AG if he could guarantee that a recount that started on December 7th could be completed by the December 13th deadline for finalizing the certified electors for MI. The Michigan AG said he could not guarantee that the recount would be done in time.
So the Federal judge was left with two options here:
A. Allow Michigan law to dictate the timing of the recount, and run the risk of having the recount not completed by December 13th.
B. Order the recount to begin on December 5th, which would be in violation of the MI statute but would improve the odds of completing the recount on time.
The judge did not rule on the merits of the Michigan AG's separate suit to stop the recount entirely under MI law. All the judge did was weigh the risks of Scenario A against the MI statutory requirements of Scenario B, and he decided that there would be no harm in starting the recount two days earlier than the date specified under MI law. He ruled (probably correctly) that the risk of an incomplete recount outweighed any inconvenience in starting the recount early.
If the Michigan courts later determined that the recount never should have been authorized in the first place by the canvassing board, then the recount he ordered could easily be stopped. The MI court decision today is the first step in stopping the recount he ordered.