MADISON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Wisconsin Elections Commission has ordered an investigation into the Green Bay City Clerk’s office after duplicate ballots were issued for the two most recent elections.
The city has admitted it sent out 152 duplicate ballots for the April election. The city is “reasonably certain” 244 extra ballots were recently sent out for the August election, according to an email from the city attorney to city council members.
The WEC’s decision requires Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys to submit a detailed explanation by July 31st on how only one ballot will be tabulated for the electors who were mailed two ballots. Jeffreys also must submit by August 14th a plan to ensure duplicate ballots are not sent out again, and a detailed explanation by July 31st of how the duplicate ballots error occurred for the April and August elections.
“That’s a lot of extra ballots going out,” said Ann Jacobs, a Wisconsin Elections commissioner. “We need a detailed investigation because we cannot fix what we don’t know how it happened.” The six members of Wisconsin’s Elections Commission will be taking up a staff recommendation that says Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys violated the law in sending out duplicate ballots this past spring. That recommendation was made before finding out duplicate ballots were sent out again two weeks ago.
Jacobs says a mechanism was put into the WisVote System a few years ago to prevent duplicate absentee labels and ballots from being printed and encourages clerks to use the system.
“What software are they using? How are they exporting it? Who is printing these labels? How do they not catch this?” said Jacobs of questions she hopes can be answered through an investigation.
An analysis of a complaint for the April duplicate ballot error from staff of the Wisconsin Elections Commission found probable cause that Jeffreys violated the law in issuing duplicate ballots. The commission decided to wait until a future meeting to take action on that decision, as it wants the investigation to proceed first.
The city will reportedly be issuing a statement this afternoon in response to the WEC’s decision.
Jeffreys has previously said these were printing errors and only one ballot per eligible voter will be tabulated.
In the past four years, this is the third time WEC’s staff has determined probable cause Jeffreys violated the law. The previous times were for accepting an absentee ballot on behalf of a sick person who didn’t have proper disability authorization. The other was for not following Election Day Registration procedures.
