Callaway gets two years in jail for ballot fraud scheme

Former Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway was sentenced to two years in prison for setting up a fraudulent scheme to illegally harvest and cast vote-by-mail ballots in the 2022 general election.

Federal prosecutors allege that Callaway and others working for him approached numerous voters in Atlantic City and offered to pay them $30 to $50 to act as authorized messengers for VBM voters.    Those messengers allegedly went to the county clerk’s office with one to four applications for a mail-in ballot, waited for them to be processed, and left in possession of the ballots.

Instead of delivering the ballots to the voters, they gave them to Callaway.  Those ballots never reached the voters, who federal investigators say never authorized the VBM application or submitted a ballot.  Callaway or his team allegedly cast those votes.

Callaway admitted to “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.”

“Today’s sentence sends a clear message to those who seek to undermine New Jersey’s electoral process: that such conduct will result in serious consequences,” said U.S. Attorney Alina Habba. “The sentence also reflects our office’s commitment to protecting free and fair elections, one of the bedrock principles of our democracy.”

U.S. District Court Judge Renee Bumb also sentenced Callaway to three years of supervised release.

Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds helped federal prosecutors with their investigation.

This marks Callaway’s second prison stint.  He spent nearly four years in prison after a conviction on bribery charges.

“With today’s conviction, we can finally turn the page on this embarrassing chapter in Atlantic County history. However, we must do everything we can to restore integrity to our elections and ensure that another Craig Callaway never emerges anywhere in New Jersey,” said Michael Sulieman, the Atlantic County Democratic Chairman.  “There will be other desperate candidates on both sides of the aisle who will be eager pay ballot harvesters, and there will inevitably be other political operatives who want to make a quick buck and think that they won’t get caught by law enforcement.”

Suleiman called on the State Assembly to pass legislation that makes payments to ballot messengers and bearers illegal.

In 2023, Superior Court Judge Michael Blee permanently barred him from serving as a ballot assister after former State Sen. Colin Bell, the attorney for the Atlantic County Democrats, said that, among other things, Callaway had served as an assistor in the June primary to a voter who had claimed she could not read and write but actually graduated college with honors.

“I believe there was clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Callaway was involved in a voter fraud scheme,” Bell said.  “He has to be stopped from abusing the system.”

In 2015, then-State Sen. James Whelan (D-Atlantic City) got a law passed that limited the number of ballots a voter can serve as a bearer for to three.  Whelan pushed the initiative to combat his belief that Callaway was running a ballot tampering operation.