title: Calling jquery validation valid on form element
body: <p>I have a form where I am calling the valid() function on each form element separately. I have an field named "altemailaddress" that I set a rule to be "email" and required is false. However the valid() function returns false if there is no value in the input text box.</p>
  
  <pre><code>jQuery("#aspnet-form").validate({
      onsubmit: false,
      rules: {
          prefix: "required",
          emailaddress: {
              required: true,
              email: true
          },
          altemailaddress: {
              required: false,
              email: true
          }
  
      },
      messages: {
          prefix: "Please enter a prefix",
          emailaddress: {
              required: "Please enter an email address",
              email: "Invalid email format"
          }
  
      }
  });
  
  var $group = jQuery(this).parents(".validationGroup");
      var isValid = true;
  
  
      $group.find(":input").each(function (i, item) {
          if (!jQuery(item).valid())
          {
  
              isValid = false;
          }           
  
      });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As I loop through each item, I call the valid() function. If the rule for altemailaddress says require: false,  it ignores it and returns false if no value is provided.</p>
  
  <p>If I just set up the validate plugin to validate on submit it works fine.</p>