The organization behind the presidential campaign for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, along with one other group, on Friday filed a petition with the Wisconsin Elections Commission for a recount of votes in the Nov. 8 election, the commission said.

"The commission is preparing to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for president of the United States, as requested by these candidates," commission administrator Michael Haas said in a statement.

President-elect Donald Trump won Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by narrow margins and has a small lead in Michigan.

Under Wisconsin law, Stein's campaign must show a basis for the recount in that state and cover costs. Stein has said she's concerned voting systems in the three states may have been hacked. Her campaign estimates a Wisconsin recount will cost $1.1 million US.

As of Friday morning, Stein's campaign had raised $4.8 million to seek recounts in all three states.

Although Trump won narrowly in the three states, the margins make it highly unlikely that any recounts would end up giving Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a win in all three states, which would be needed for the overall presidential election result to change. The Republican beat Clinton in Pennsylvania by 70,010 votes, in Michigan by 10,704 votes and in Wisconsin by 27,257 votes.

Trump surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win, although once the final tallies of votes are in, Clinton will have won the national popular vote by more than two million votes. Stein won just one per cent of the national vote.

While the recounts are unlikely to change the election result, they could complicate Trump's calls for national unity as he tries to move past what may have been the nastiest presidential contest in the modern era.