title: JQuery validation plugin onclick link
body: <p>I have a form that uses a link to submit the results.
  I'm using Jquery validation plugin.</p>
  
  <p>I can get the form to validate if I use a normal button to submit the form.
  How can I call the Jquery function from a hyperlink instead of a button.
  Here's my jquery:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
       $(document).ready(function () {
          $('#newsletter_form').validate({ 
              rules: {
                  CONTACTS_EMAIL: {
                      required: true,
                      email: true
                  },
                  CONTACTS_PRIVACY_POLICY_AGREE: "required",
              },
              messages: {
                  CONTACTS_PRIVACY_POLICY_AGREE: "&lt;?php echo $FRM_ERRMSG_CONTACTS_PRIVACY_POLICY_AGREE;?&gt;",
                  CONTACTS_EMAIL: {
                    required: "&lt;?php echo $FRM_ERRMSG_CONTACTS_EMAIL;?&gt;",
                    email: "&lt;?php echo $FRM_ERRMSG_CONTACTS_EMAIL_FORMAT;?&gt;"
                  }
                },
              submitHandler: function (form) { 
                  form.submit();
              }
          });   
      });
   &lt;/script&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And here is my html (with some php inside to be ignored)</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;form id="newsletter_form" name="newsletter_form" action="newsletter_submit.php" method="post" &gt;
          &lt;br&gt;
          &lt;div class="mc-field-group"&gt;
              &lt;input type="text" name="CONTACTS_EMAIL" placeholder="*&lt;?echo $EMAIL_FIELD_TEXT;?&gt;" style="width: 280px;font-size: 20px;" /&gt;&lt;br&gt;
              &lt;input type="checkbox" name="CONTACTS_PRIVACY_POLICY_AGREE"&gt; &lt;?echo $PRIVACY_POLICY;?&gt; * &lt;label for="CONTACTS_PRIVACY_POLICY_AGREE" class="error" style="display:none;"&gt;&lt;/label&gt;
  
              &lt;input type="hidden" name="CONTACTS_LANGUAGE" value="&lt;?echo $language;?&gt;"&gt;
              &lt;div&gt;
                  &lt;input type='submit' style='position:absolute;top:0;left:-9999px;width:1px;height:1px' name='newsletter_form'&gt;
                  &lt;a style="margin-top:22px;" class="wsite-button external-link" onclick="document.getElementById('newsletter_form').submit()"&gt; 
                  &lt;span class="wsite-button-inner"&gt;&lt;?echo $BUTTON_TEXT;?&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
              &lt;/div&gt;
          &lt;/div&gt;
      &lt;/form&gt;
  </code></pre>