Former New Jersey Mayor Who Drove Drunk With Her Kid Now Faces Election Fraud Charges

Here’s something you need to understand about political corruption. It doesn’t announce itself with grand schemes and elaborate conspiracies. More often than not, it shows up in the mundane paperwork, the signatures nobody checks, the petitions people assume are legitimate because who would be dumb enough to fake them?

Gina LaPlaca would, apparently.

The former mayor of Lumberton Township, New Jersey, is now facing criminal charges alongside her husband for allegedly fabricating signatures on her nominating petition for a Democratic primary race. And before you think this is just some administrative hiccup, let me be clear about what prosecutors say happened. Multiple people whose names appeared on that petition told investigators they never signed it. Never authorized anyone to sign it for them. Never even knew their names were being used to help LaPlaca qualify for the ballot.

Without those allegedly fraudulent signatures, she wouldn’t have had enough valid ones to even run. Think about that for a second. She couldn’t muster enough legitimate support from actual voters to get on a local ballot, so prosecutors say she just made some up.

This is the same woman who pleaded guilty to DUI after driving drunk with her child in the car. Triple the legal limit, according to reports. There’s bodycam footage of officers moving her kid to the curb for safety while she stumbled through a field sobriety test. She entered a diversion program for that one, a deal that keeps it off her record if she complies with certain conditions.

You know what’s remarkable about cases like this? The sheer audacity. LaPlaca remains on the township committee even now. She’s still serving in public office while facing these new charges. Her husband Jason Carty got charged too, facing counts of knowingly filing a false petition, tampering with public records, and falsifying records. LaPlaca faces those same charges plus making a false statement under oath.

That oath part matters. She signed an affidavit swearing she “personally circulated the petition” and that it “was signed by each of the signers thereof in his/her own handwriting.” Prosecutors say that was a lie. A lie under penalty of perjury. A lie that would have put her on a ballot she didn’t legitimately qualify for.

We talk a lot about election integrity in this country, and honestly, the conversation often gets stuck in partisan gridlock. But this isn’t about mail-in ballots or voter ID laws or any of the usual talking points. This is about someone allegedly forging signatures to manufacture the appearance of public support. It’s fraud at its most basic level, the kind that should offend everyone regardless of party affiliation.

The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office didn’t stumble onto this by accident. They investigated. They talked to the people whose names appeared on that petition. They did the boring, necessary work of verifying what should have been verifiable from the start. And they found what appears to be a pattern of falsification designed to circumvent the most basic requirement of democratic participation: actual public support.

LaPlaca is a Democrat, which matters only because it demonstrates that corruption doesn’t wear a party label. It wears opportunity. It shows up wherever people think they can get away with cutting corners, wherever the scrutiny seems light enough and the stakes seem worth the risk. Local elections are particularly vulnerable because nobody’s watching that closely. The press barely covers township committee races. Voters assume the candidates who appear on their ballots got there legitimately.

This case strips away that assumption and forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth. If someone will drive drunk with their child in the car, if someone will risk their kid’s life for their own convenience, what makes us think they’ll respect the integrity of an election? Character reveals itself in patterns, not isolated incidents.

The charges are serious. Making false statements under oath. Tampering with public records. These aren’t technicalities or paperwork errors. They’re deliberate acts that undermine the foundation of representative government. Every fake signature represents a voter who didn’t exist, support that was manufactured, legitimacy that was counterfeited.

And here’s the thing that should bother you most. She almost got away with it.