Democrat who lied to put lover on the ballot for New Jersey governor sentenced to prison

2

TRENTON – Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) today announced the conviction of a Hunterdon County campaign manager for attempting to fraudulently place a candidate on the Democratic primary ballot in the race for governor of New Jersey in 2021.

Pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement with OPIA, James Devine, 62, of Lambertville, New Jersey, was sentenced to two years of probation on October 18, 2024, by Judge Robert E. Lytle in the Superior Court, Mercer County. Devine pleaded guilty before Judge Lytle on August 26, 2024, to a third-degree felony count of certificates of nomination or petition.

Devine is the “life partner” of perennial Democratic candidate Lisa McCormick.

“Rather than knocking on doors and making good faith efforts to convince voters to support his candidate, the defendant misused voter information without consent to mislead the state into believing his candidate qualified the bare minimum requirements to be on the ballot. ,” said Attorney General Platkin. “Cheating in a race for elected office is illegal and undemocratic, and there are consequences.”

“Criminal activity that threatens people’s confidence in the fairness and legitimacy of our elections is unacceptable.” said Drew Skinner, executive director of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. “This case should send a message that election fraud will be detected and offenders will be held accountable.”

Following an OPIA investigation, a state grand jury in Trenton returned an indictment on March 12, 2024, charging Devine with several crimes stemming from his April 2021 attempt to fraudulently place the candidate on the ballot during the 8 Democratic gubernatorial election June 2021.

According to publicly filed documents and statements in open court, the investigation revealed that Devine submitted 1,948 fraudulent nomination petitions to the New Jersey Department of State’s Division of Elections in an effort to enable his candidate to compete in the primary election.

The New Jersey Democratic State Committee filed a formal legal challenge to Devine’s efforts on April 9, 2021, listing issues with the petitions he filed. The committee claimed that there were questions about the authenticity of these petitions.

Citing the irregularities, administrative law judge Jeffrey N. Rabin sided with the committee on April 13, 2021 and removed the candidate from the ballot.

During the investigation, individuals whose names appear on the petitions filed by Devine provided information that they had neither filed nor consented to the petition in support of the nomination of the candidate. The investigation found that Devine uploaded false voter information on petition forms and submitted them to the Division of Elections on behalf of the campaign without voter consent.

By pleading guilty, the defendant has acknowledged that he knew the petitions were improperly filed when he filed them.

The case was handled for the OPIA Corruption Bureau by Assistant Attorney General Andrew Wellbrock, under the supervision of Bureau Chief Jeff Manis and OPIA Executive Director Skinner.