The state Elections Commission today unanimously found the former Green Bay clerk broke state law by sending duplicate ballots to voters in back-to-back elections and abused her discretion.
The commissioners also agreed to take no further action after the Milwaukee Election Commission provided an explanation on how it mistakenly downloaded audit log reports from five tabulators at central count during the Aug. 11 primary rather than the unofficial results from the absentee ballots tallied there.
GOP Chair Don Millis said during a virtual meeting this morning that his feeling was “we should let it lay” on the Milwaukee issue unless someone files a complaint with the commission.
The mistake at Milwaukee’s central count delayed the reporting of results that expanded Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s lead over state Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, in the race for the Dem gubernatorial nomination.
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On Friday, the Milwaukee Election Commission posted documents from the Aug. 11 primary, including logs from central count. The city also sent the state commission a letter Aug. 28 with an explanation of what happened.
Today’s meeting lasted 20 minutes with little discussion of either issue on the agenda, including the complaint against then-Green Bay Clerk Celestine Jeffreys.
Her office sent duplicate absentee ballots to voters for both the April election and Aug. 11 primary and attributed the mistake to human error. Jeffreys also claimed in her response to the complaint that state law doesn’t bar the sending of duplicate ballots to voters.
The commission opened an investigation into the mailings and concluded today that Jeffreys both violated the law and abused her discretion. The staff noted in the materials prepared for today’s meeting that Jeffreys, who has since resigned, wasn’t sure how many duplicate ballots were sent ahead of the Aug. 11 primary.
In each case, only one ballot from each voter was counted.
“When a clerk keeps such inadequate records of her actions and processes that she cannot even determine after the fact whether she sent out 240 duplicate absentee ballots or 390 of them, she has abused her discretion,” the materials stated.