GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — Another complaint has been filed with the Wisconsin Election Commission, this one over Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys.
A Brown County man is claiming he saw Jeffreys accept multiple absentee ballots from the same person during the April 5th municipal election.
“My clients observed the clerk accepting, over their objections, multiple absentee ballots from the same person,” said Attorney Eric Kaardal with the conservative Thomas More Society, which filed the complaint. “The clerk claimed to have a discretion to accept multiple absentee ballots.”
But that’s not the case, says Kaardal.
“There’s nothing in the text that suggests that she can accept multiple ballots from a single voter in the clerk’s office,” Kaardal told WTAQ. “But she is claiming ‘yes, I have that power’.”
There’s been a lot of debate in Wisconsin over the legal issues surrounding absentee ballot returns, with opponents saying it allows for ballot harvesting and fraud. Supporters say it prevents voters from being disenfranchised.
“I believe she believes she is following the law,” Kaardal said. “But the ordinary meaning of the law, the words ‘personal delivery’, means that someone cannot deliver someone else’s ballot.”
Kaardal says it’s further evidence of a pattern of illegal behavior from Green Bay’s City Clerk.
“With respect to Celestine Jeffreys’ commitment to violating the law, she’s above average,” Kaardal added.
Jeffreys, who did not respond to a request for comment as of press time, has been at the center of a number of election-related controversies since taking on city clerk duties following the 2020 general election. In February, the clerk’s office took heat after a pool watcher found clerk’s staff counting absentee ballots hours ahead of the posted time. As former Chief of Staff to Mayor Eric Genrich, Jeffreys also was named in a complaint about the city’s use of a $1.6 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Mark Zuckerberg-funded left learning not-for-profit.
Comments