Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys has resigned, ending a five-year tenure marked by repeated election law violations and the city’s central role in the 2020 ‘Zuckbucks’ controversy. Her departure comes as Wisconsin election officials investigate yet another absentee ballot error in her office.
Mayor Eric Genrich announced Jeffreys’ resignation in a brief statement Friday, saying she ‘has made the decision to step down from her role as City Clerk’ and wishing her well. The city said that would be its only comment on the matter.
The resignation follows the city placing Jeffreys on administrative leave last month after her office sent an unspecified number of absentee ballots to voters in several wards ahead of Tuesday’s primary election. Her office described the issue as a ‘printing error.’
This was the second such mishap in less than three months. According to a complaint filed by the Republican Party of Wisconsin and Brown County GOP board member Theresa Sipes, the office issued duplicate absentee ballots ‘in at least 152 instances’ before the spring elections.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has opened another investigation, finding probable cause that the latest ballot error violated state law. Green Bay’s city council is expected to hear a presentation on the probe later this month.
GOP officials demand more accountability
Brown County GOP Chairman Doug Reich called Jeffreys’ resignation ‘the bare minimum, and it’s long overdue.’ In a Facebook post, Reich said the city’s two-sentence statement offered ‘no explanation and no apology to the voters affected.’
Reich also raised unresolved questions, including how many voters received erroneous ballots for the primary and who is now running the clerk’s office. He noted the deputy clerk has been handling day-to-day operations while the city seeks a permanent replacement.
‘Two elections. Two rounds of duplicate absentee ballots. A state investigation. And the best the city could produce, even after all that, was a two-sentence statement,’ Reich wrote.
Nicholas Boerke, counsel for Sipes, has asked the WEC to find the city out of compliance with a July 31 order requiring officials to explain how the printer error occurred again. In a letter to the commission, Boerke wrote that the city’s response—an unsworn letter from its attorney—’is not accountability.’
‘This is either gross incompetence or something worse and the difference matters,’ Boerke wrote, urging the commission to use its subpoena power to obtain records and testimony under oath.
A record of violations
Jeffreys’ tenure was repeatedly criticized by election integrity groups. The Public Interest Legal Foundation filed complaints that led officials to admit she broke election law because she did not understand it.
In 2022, the WEC found she violated election law by accepting multiple absentee ballots brought in by individual voters during the spring election. That same year, a judge ordered the city to allow GOP poll watchers to observe early voting after the RNC sued.
In January 2024, a Brown County Circuit Court judge dismissed a disorderly conduct citation against an election observer, calling the city’s action ‘retaliatory.’ Jeffreys was involved in that matter as well.
She also failed multiple times to follow procedures for auditing same-day voter registrations, admitting she was unaware of the law.
Zuckbucks connection
Jeffreys’ resignation closes a chapter that began during the 2020 election, when she served as Mayor Genrich’s chief of staff. Green Bay was part of the ‘Wisconsin 5,’ liberal-led cities that received a large share of $10 million in grants from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife for election administration.
Emails obtained by Wisconsin Spotlight showed that Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a former New York Democrat operative, offered to help ‘cure’ absentee ballots in Green Bay and Milwaukee during that election. Jeffreys was instrumental in allowing such groups access to the clerk’s office, according to reports.
Jeffreys succeeded Christine Teske as clerk just weeks before the 2020 election, after Teske resigned amid the growing presence of activists in the office. She was appointed permanently after the election.
PILF Research Director Logan Churchwell welcomed the resignation, saying it shows ‘Green Bay could no longer ignore this pattern’ and serving as a reminder that ‘following election law is not optional.’
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/08/10/notorious-wisconsin-election-official-at-center-of-zuckbucks-scandal-resigns/