CAMDEN – Former Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway admitted to the procurement, casting, and tabulation of fraudulent mail-in ballots submitted in connection with the general election held on Nov. 8, 2022, Acting U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna announced last week.
Callaway, 64, a political organizer who assisted campaigns for elected offices in New Jersey, pleaded guilty before Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb in Camden federal court to an information charging him with depriving, defrauding, and attempting to deprive and defraud the residents of the State of New Jersey of a fair and impartially conducted election process by the fraudulent procurement, casting, and tabulation of ballots.
“The defendant admitted to depriving New Jersey residents of a fair election by participating in a scheme to cast ballots for voters who did not vote in the election,” Khanna said. “Along with our law enforcement partners, we are committed to prosecuting those who criminally seek to undermine impartially conducted elections.”
According to the documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Beginning in or about October 2022, about a month before the general election, Callaway and others who were working at Callaway’s direction approached numerous individuals in Atlantic City, promising to pay them between approximately $30 and $50 to act as purported authorized messengers for voters who supposedly wished to vote by mail.
After receiving Vote-By-Mail Applications from Callaway or his subordinates, these purported messengers entered the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office carrying anywhere from one to four completed Vote-By-Mail Applications. Inside the County Clerk’s Office, as instructed by Callaway or his subordinates, these individuals provided County Clerk’s Office personnel proof of identification and signed the Vote-By-Mail Applications in the authorized messenger portion of the application before handing those signed applications to office personnel. Further, as instructed by Callaway or his subordinates, these purported messengers waited while Clerk’s Office personnel processed the applications and, if the applications were approved, provided to the purported messengers mail-in ballots for the voters listed on the applications.
Under New Jersey law, a messenger was required to deliver any mail-in ballots they received directly to the voter who requested the ballots, and certify that they would do so. However, after receiving mail-in ballots, these purported messengers left the county Clerk’s Office and handed the ballots to Callaway or his subordinates, instead of delivering the ballots to the voters.
Many of the mail-in ballots collected by Callaway or his subordinates were ultimately cast in the names of voters who have confirmed that they did not vote in the 2022 General Election — either in-person or by submitting a mail-in ballot — and that they did not authorize Callaway, his subordinates, or anyone else, to cast ballots for them in the 2022 General Election. Many of these mail-in ballots were counted towards the 2022 General Election.
