MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin recount observer Ardis Cerny stretched her neck as far as she could toward a Plexiglas divider separating her from two vote counters, eagle-eyeing them as they scrutinized ballot papers one by one.

When one tabulator told the ardent supporter of President Donald Trump she was leaning too far over a yellow line on a Milwaukee conference-hall floor meant to keep observers 3 feet away, Cerny bristled.

“I know you don’t want us to see the ballots,” she said. “You think we’ll find something.”

Cerny is part of a large contingent of pro-Trump observers participating in a recount the president requested and paid $3 million for in the state’s two biggest and most liberal counties, Milwaukee and Dane, in a long shot bid to erase Democrat Joe Biden’s more than 20,000-vote lead after the initial count.

With no precedent to erase such a large margin, it’s widely expected that Trump’s eventual plan in Wisconsin is litigation over thousands of absentee ballots that he argues were improperly cast.

But that doesn’t mean his recount observers aren’t trying.

The atmosphere inside the convention hall where Milwaukee County’s recount is taking place has turned acrimonious and chaotic at times.