Atlantic City's Craig Callaway, the get-out-the-vote expert arrested Thursday and charged with fraud related to his handling of mail-in ballots in the 2022 general election, will still speak at Liberty & Prosperity's annual fundraiser, its founder said Friday.
Attorney and former Republican congressional candidate Seth Grossman said Friday he has spoken to Callaway since the arrest, and Callaway confirmed he will attend the Feb. 17 event.
"The reason he was invited in the first place is with the presidential election coming up, a large number of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen (from President Donald Trump)," Grossman said.
"Our members should be aware how the mail-in ballot messenger system works, and why it should be abolished," Grossman said. "Callaway's method would explain that ... how they gather ballots and put them in at the end."
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Grossman, a supporter of President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, said many Trump supporters didn't understand how Trump could be ahead after the polls closed in swing states yet lose after all mail-in-ballots were counted.
Callaway is accused of paying Atlantic City residents $30 to $50 per person to act as vote-by-mail "messengers," going in to the Atlantic County Clerk's office with paperwork filled out by voters and collecting mail-in ballots, according to federal charges filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Under state law, the messengers are supposed to take the ballots back to individual voters, but the U.S. attorney is alleging the messengers gave hundreds of the ballots to Callaway to handle himself. And the charges include allegations from four "purported voters" who say they did not vote but ballots were put in in their names.
"These are the messy things that happen when we have a very flawed system," Grossman said.
Political operative Craig Callaway was arrested Thursday and charged with procuring, casting and tabulating fraudulent mail-in ballots in the November 2022 general election.
Liberty and Prosperity, a nonprofit educational group founded in 2003, says its mission is to understand and teach why New Jersey's motto, "Liberty and Prosperity," is "still relevant and true today."
Grossman, 74, is a lawyer who lives in Atlantic City. A former city councilman and former Republican candidate for state Senate and U.S. Congress, his group often rallies against what they call abuses of the Constitution by those in power, including government.
In September 2022, a Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Liberty and Prosperity in its lawsuit against the state, deciding that 2021 amendments to the casino payment-in-lieu-of-taxes law were unconstitutional. The amendments cut the amount casinos had to pay to replace property taxes by $55 million a year.
Gov. Phil Murphy has appealed the decision.
Holding onto ballots and sending them back at the very end keeps opponents from knowing how many ballots are coming in from the opposing party, and from then cranking up their own get-out-the-vote effort, he said.
Michael Suleiman, the Atlantic County Democratic chairman, said Thursday he will lobby for changes in New Jersey law to ban payments to those who act as ballot messengers and bearers, and to mandate prepaid postage on all mail-in ballots so “voters do not need to engage third parties to safely return their ballots.”
But Grossman said reform is not enough. He advocates for going back to the past system, in which votes happen at secure polling places and only those with legitimate health or travel needs can vote by mail.
There is a ban on electioneering at the polls or near the polls, Grossman said.
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"When we have vote by mail, even with Suleiman's reforms, every kitchen table becomes a polling place," Grossman said, and voters are subject to influence from anyone who wants to exert it. "The ballot box is completely unsupervised."
"Their (Democrats') agenda is to say the system is good," Grossman said, and bad people must be stopped from breaking the rules. "But in fact the system is wrong. ... We need to go back to voting on Election Day (in person)."
Grossman also has many questions about why Callaway has been targeted now for prosecution, when he has been conducting the same get-out-the-vote efforts in the Atlantic City area for years.
Until 2021, when he lost control over the Atlantic City Democratic Committee, Callaway had worked mainly for Democratic candidates. He did, however, work for U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, in his 2020 reelection bid.
When Assemblyman Don Guardian, R-Atlantic, narrowly lost reelection as Atlantic City mayor to Frank Gilliam in 2017, he took evidence of improper mail-in ballot handling by Callaway to authorities, but no action was taken.
Now that Callaway is working for some Republicans — including Guardian in 2021 — Grossman said, Callaway has been charged.
"Craig Callaway is doing the basic math. It is what Democrats throughout America have been doing over the past 20 years," Grossman said. "They have been using a massive number of messengers assisting people in getting it done."
He also has questions about the evidence laid out in the federal complaint.
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"It's curious that after five weeks of surveillance ... the FBI agent focuses on four voters," Grossman said. "Four voters say they don't remember doing it (signing a ballot or ballot application), as opposed to providing an envelope with a fudged signature."
He looks forward to seeing what other evidence the federal government may have, Grossman said.
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