Green Bay clerk has not 'strictly' adhered to laws regarding Election Day registration, but promises to do better in future

The clerk for the City of Green Bay, Wisconsin — a crucial swing state that could determine the winner of the 2024 presidential election — has admitted that she has not "strictly" followed state election laws regarding Election Day registration, but she claims she will do better going forward.

Last month, the Public Interest Legal Fund filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission against Celestine Jeffreys, who became the Green Bay city clerk shortly after the contentious 2020 election. According to the complaint, Jeffreys has regularly failed to report those who register to vote on Election Day but who apparently do not live at the address they gave.

'It’s not often you have an elected official admit she doesn’t know the law.'

According to a report from the Federalist, Wisconsin is one of 20 states and the District of Columbia which permit Election Day voter registration. Before casting a ballot, Wisconsinites who register to vote on Election Day must show proof of residence and "must affirm in writing that they have resided at their residence 'for at least 28 consecutive days immediately preceding this election,'" the complaint stated.

After the election, the state will then mail postcards to everyone who registered to vote on Election Day as part of a state-mandated post-election audit. Any such postcards that cannot be delivered are automatically delivered to the clerk of the city where the individual registered to vote.

For each undeliverable postcard received, a city clerk is responsible for changing the elector from "eligible to ineligible" on the voter registration list, alerting the individual about this change, and reporting the elector's name to the county district attorney and the elections commission, the complaint claimed.

However, "Jeffreys failed to do this part of her job at every turn," the Federalist alleged, citing the complaint.

Indeed, the complaint indicates that Jeffreys has repeatedly failed to report hundreds of such electors as required by law. For example, on Election Day 2020, 3,497 Wisconsin electors registered to vote. Of those, 170 postcards were deemed undeliverable and thus sent to the Green Bay City Clerk's Office. Yet, "the City of Green Bay Clerk’s office inactivated zero registrants and referred zero registrants to the district attorney," the complaint said.

Such was the case in the 2021 elections, the primary and general elections of 2022, and the 2023 spring election, the complaint said. During that time, Jeffreys' office received dozens of postcards for Election Day registrants but inactivated almost no electors and seemingly reported no one to the district attorney.

"When Clerk Jeffreys receives undeliverable Election Day Registration postcards, her current procedure is to record the postcards as undeliverable in WisVote and take no further action," the complaint said.

In a complaint response, which was submitted late last month by Green Bay Assistant City Attorney Lindsay Matther, Jeffreys admitted that she had not followed state election laws as well as she might have but blamed her missteps on ignorance of the law rather than any sort of malicious intent.

"Clerk Jeffreys concedes that she has not been strictly adhering to the statutory requirements ... but the failure to do so was inadvertent and due to a lack of awareness of the statutory requirements, and not the result of any willful violation of state law," said the response, which was signed by Jeffreys.

Jeffreys now vows to do better, the response said. "Upon receipt of this complaint, Clerk Jeffreys began formulating a plan for addressing the undeliverable postcards going forward that algins (sic) with both the statutory requirements and the guidance from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and she will comply with both for all future elections," it said.

Lauren Bowman Bis, director of communications for the Public Interest Legal Fund, called Jeffreys' actions "unbelievable." "People need to have faith and trust in their elected officials," she said.

"It’s not often you have an elected official admit she doesn’t know the law," Bowman noted. "... This doesn’t just affect the people in Green Bay or Wisconsin. We all want faith in our elections, that the rules are being followed. In Green Bay, that’s not the case."

"This is bad."

Jeffreys did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

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