GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys is stepping down from her role following issues involving duplicate absentee ballots mailed to voters ahead of the April and August 2026 elections.
In a joint statement, the City of Green Bay and Jeffreys announced her departure Friday.
“The City of Green Bay and Celestine Jeffreys are jointly announcing that Ms. Jeffreys has made the decision to step down from her role as City Clerk,” the statement said. “We wish her the best in her future endeavors. This will be the City’s only statement on the matter.”
Jeffreys’ resignation comes after city officials told the Wisconsin Elections Commission that human error in the clerk’s office led to duplicate absentee ballots being sent to some voters.
In a response submitted to the commission, the city explained how the errors occurred and detailed new safeguards intended to prevent voters from casting more than one ballot in the Aug. 11 primary.
According to the city, the first issue happened in March during processing for the April election. Officials said a batch of 152 absentee ballot requests was either improperly filed or accidentally reprinted by Jeffreys, causing duplicate ballot labels to be inserted into absentee ballot packets a second time.
A second incident occurred in June while preparing absentee ballots for the August primary. The city said Jeffreys believed some voter labels were missing from a printed batch and reprinted pages from the file, resulting in duplicate absentee ballots being mailed to voters.
City officials said WisVote, Wisconsin’s statewide voter registration system, was the only software involved in both incidents and that no outside vendors were used.
The issue came to light after a voter reported receiving duplicate ballots on June 27. Jeffreys then notified Mayor Eric Genrich and the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The city later issued a public notice and mailed letters to affected voters.
In response, the Clerk’s Office said it implemented additional safeguards on July 13, including expanded ballot tracking procedures, multiple envelope reviews, ballot custody logs, voter-by-voter comparisons and additional WisVote cross-checks.
The city also said election staff are now required to immediately notify the clerk if duplicate ballot envelopes are discovered.
According to city officials, the City Clerk position will be posted to the City's website, and the previous Deputy Clerk Stacey Menke will serve as Interim City Clerk until the position has been filled.
Please stay with NBC 26 as this story develops.
