Green Bay Clerk Broke Election Law for the Third Time and Republicans Want Her Removed

Green Bay election officials got caught mailing 152 duplicate ballots to voters in April.

Now that same clerk's office has sent out duplicate ballots yet again.

One Wisconsin Republican says there are only two explanations left for what keeps happening in Green Bay.

Green Bay Clerk's Third Strike in Four Years

Celestine Jeffreys has run the Green Bay city clerk's office since 2021.

Wisconsin election regulators have now flagged probable cause that she broke state law on three separate occasions.

The first two violations involved improper handling of a disability ballot request and a failure to follow Election Day Registration procedures.

The third centers on the same duplicate ballot scandal that has now struck twice in a single year.

Wisconsin Elections Commission staff drafted a memo concluding there is "no doubt" Jeffreys violated state law when her office issued those duplicates.

Jeffreys blamed the mistake on mislabeled certificate envelopes and insisted her office caught it before any fraud occurred.

Then, on June 27, her office discovered voters in eight wards may have received duplicate ballots again ahead of the August primary.

Green Bay called it a printing error and asked voters to return just one ballot.

City officials refused every interview request from local reporters on the advice of their own attorneys.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany has resurfaced Green Bay's handling of the 2020 election in response to the new duplicate ballot mess.

Tiffany called for a "full audit and accountability."

Republicans Demand Answers Before November

Brown County voter Theresa Sipes filed the original complaint against Jeffreys in April, backed by the state Republican Party.

Brown County Republican Party Chair Doug Reich says the repeated errors reflect a broader pattern at the clerk's office.

Reich says his party warned the Wisconsin Elections Commission this would happen again if nothing changed, and the commission still did not act.

Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich has let his spokesperson decline every question about whether he still trusts his own clerk.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is scheduled to vote on formal action against Jeffreys following that complaint.

Half of the six-member commission answers to Republican appointments, the other half to Democrats.

Commission staff have given Jeffreys until July 24 to detail the new safeguards she plans to put in place.

Commissioners take up both the April case and the newer June incident at the same July 9 meeting, deciding the clerk's fate in one sitting.

State GOP Chair Brian Schimming said Jeffreys is either "incompetent at her job or intentionally failing to follow basic election law."

Why This Should Terrify Every Wisconsin Voter

Heritage Foundation research has long warned that mail-in ballots create exactly this kind of vulnerability.

Absentee ballots get filled out away from any election observer, which means mistakes and fraud alike can slip through unnoticed.

Wisconsin's own election commission admits multiple checks exist specifically so no voter ever gets two live ballots at once.

And in Green Bay, those checks failed anyway, under one clerk, in back-to-back elections.

Wisconsin is not some obscure town nobody's heard of.

It's a battleground state that decided the 2020 and 2024 elections by a few thousand votes.

A handful of double-counted ballots in a place like Green Bay could swing a razor-thin statewide race.

Jeffreys says no one has voted twice and every known duplicate has been caught before counting.

Maybe that's true this time, but "trust me" isn't an election safeguard, it's a talking point.

Every election cycle, Green Bay promises it fixed the problem, and every election cycle the problem comes right back.

Republicans aren't asking for anything radical, they're asking for one ballot per voter, tracked and counted correctly.

If Jeffreys can't manage that after three strikes, Wisconsin voters deserve a clerk who can.

Green Bay gets one more election before Wisconsin votes in November, and Celestine Jeffreys has already used up three chances.

Sources:

• Amy Curtis, "Wisconsin Election Officials Have Sent Duplicate Mail-In Ballots to Green Bay Voters Again," Townhall, July 7, 2026.
• Staff, "WEC staff: Green Bay clerk likely violated law by sending duplicate absentee ballots," WisPolitics, July 2026.
• Staff, "WEC: Green Bay Clerk violated the law with April duplicate ballots," The Center Square, July 2026.
• Staff, "Wisconsin election regulators rule Green Bay clerk violated law with April duplicate ballots," Just The News, July 2026.
• Hans von Spakovsky, "Four Stolen Elections: The Vulnerabilities of Absentee and Mail-In Ballots," The Heritage Foundation.