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James Devine, 61, of Lambertville, filed 1,948 fraudulent petitions with the Secretary of State’s office to get Lisa McCormick on the ballot for the June 2021 primary, Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said on Tuesday, May 2.
"Jim" Devine -- who had been political director of the New Jersey Democratic Committee in the 1990s -- might be best known for saying members of his party should "go hunting" after then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot in 2017.
Tucker Carlson called him “unbalanced" at the time.
Devine served as McCormick’s campaign manager in her bid to challenge Gov. Phil Murphy in their party's primary two years ago.
According to investigators, Devine tried to capitalize on an executive order that allowed candidates in New Jersey during the COVID pandemic to file nominating petitions with electronic signatures.
Devine sloppily tapped into an outdated voter database, they charged.
At least one voter allegedly was dead, the investigators found. Another had a number in his name ("Jose8"). There was also a petition signed “First Name Middle Name Last Name” -- all evidence of an email merge, they said.
"Every single voter certification used the same fonts and signature style — with not a single voter using an electronic signature that differed from the typed name," Platkin said Tuesday.
"In nearly every instance the same number of extra spaces appeared between the city name and 'NJ' in the address line, which the Division of Elections found suspicious and seemed to indicate a computer program had filled out the forms in an identical manner," the attorney general added.
An administrative law judge bounced McCormick from the ballot after many voters whose names appeared testified that they'd never signed the petitions.
Next came a criminal investigation.
Platkin said state authorities "will not tolerate any sort of fraud that attempts to deceptively and unfairly benefit a candidate or undermine free and fair elections in New Jersey," especially "at a moment in our history when American democracy is facing some of its most formidable challenges from false claims about elections and questions about election integrity."
“Fraudulent acts like this erode faith in our government and the rule of law," added Thomas Eicher, the executive director of Platkin's Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. "There must be consequences.”
Devine was charged via summons with offenses involving bogus nominating petitions. A preindictment conference is scheduled in Trenton for this Thursday, May 4.
He and McCormick had previously been accused of using a bogus logo and letterhead to try conning voters into believing that a Democratic opponent in the state Assembly supported then-President Trump.
The pair were also accused of publishing a bogus racist quote from another primary opponent, among other alleged deception attempts at making it seem that they controlled their party in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission fined a PAC run by Devine $120,000 in 2018 for not disclosing the names of contributors or specific expenses over a five-year period.
McCormick has lost various elections over the past dozen years for both clerk and surrogate in Union County, the Rahway Council, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Devine has lost his share of elections, as well.
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