title: jquery validate form.submit() acting oddly
body: <p>I am using JQuery's validate plugin to validate a form.  Validation occurs and the submitHandler is triggered. But then I get this error (from IE8):</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Webpage error details</p>
    
    <p>User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
    MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0;
    .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727;
    .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR
    3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C;
    .NET4.0E) Timestamp: Fri, 20 May 2011
    16:30:56 UTC</p>
    
    <p>Message: Object doesn't support this
    property or method</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>It works as it should in Firefox- no errors at all. Any ideas why the form.submit() method doesn't work?</p>
  
  <h2>JQuery</h2>
  
  <pre><code>$(document).ready(function() {
      $.validator.addClassRules('valcount',{digits: true, min: 1});
  
      //Fish Form
      $("form[name='fish']").validate({
          debug: true,
          ignore: ":hidden,[name='']", // do not validate form fields in invisible sections
          errorPlacement: function(error, element) {
              if ( element.is(":radio") ) {
                  error.appendTo( element.parent().next().next() );
              }else if(element.is(":checkbox") &amp;&amp; element.parent().is('li')){
                  error.insertBefore(element.closest("ul.horiz"));
              }else{
                  error.appendTo(element.parent());
              };
          },
          rules: {
              fish_name: {required:true, minlength:5},
              care_id: {required: true, digits: true, min: 1},
              strain_id: {required: true, digits: true, min: 1},
              transgene_id: {digits: true, min: 0}
          },
          // set this class to error-labels to indicate valid fields
          success: function(label) { // set &amp;nbsp; as text for IE
              label.html("&amp;nbsp;").addClass("checked");
          },          
          submitHandler: function(form){
              if(confirm('Are you sure?'))form.submit(); //PROBLEM var has no such method
          }
      });
  
  });// end $(document).ready(function(){
  </code></pre>
  
  <h2>Form HTML</h2>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;form action='http://example.com' method='post' name='fish' id='fish'&gt;
          &lt;input name='fish_id' type="hidden" value="39" &gt;
  
          &lt;div&gt;&lt;label for='fish_name'&gt;Fish Name&lt;/label&gt;&lt;input name='fish_name' id='fish_name' type='text' value='110208'&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
          &lt;div&gt;&lt;label for='fishnotes'&gt;Notes&lt;/label&gt;&lt;textarea name='notes' id=fishnotes&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
          &lt;div&gt;&lt;label for='care_id'&gt;Animal Care Protocol&lt;/label&gt;&lt;select name='care_id' id='care_id'&gt;&lt;option value='1' selected="selected"&gt;Breeding Colony&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
          &lt;div&gt;&lt;label for='strain_id'&gt;Strain&lt;/label&gt;&lt;select name='strain_id' id='strain_id'&gt;&lt;option value='1' selected="selected"&gt;AB wt&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='2' &gt;Tub wt&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='14' &gt;AB/Tub&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='15' &gt;AB/Tub deadhead&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='16' &gt;Casper&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
          &lt;div&gt;&lt;label for='transgene_id'&gt;Transgene&lt;/label&gt;&lt;select name='transgene_id' id='transgene_id'&gt;&lt;option value=0&gt;None&lt;/options&gt;&lt;option value='1' &gt;Ztag&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='2' &gt;KDR-eGFP&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='3' &gt;BTIAR-eGFP&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='4' &gt;BTIA-eGFP&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='5' &gt;BTTP3.1-eGFP&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='6' &gt;BTTP6.2-eGFP&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='7' &gt;BTIAR-Luc&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='8' &gt;BTIA-Luc&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='9' &gt;BTTP3.1-Luc&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='10' &gt;BTTP6.2-Luc&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='11' &gt;Tg(hsp70tolgfp)v28&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;option value='16' &gt;blither&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  
  &lt;div&gt;&lt;input value='Edit' type='submit' &gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;/form&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Edited: removed submit name and id, added info about FF. Tried with <code>$(form).submit()</code> instead of <code>form.submit()</code>. Still no joy.</p>