Having no luck with the following jQuery code. Supposed to validate form input on submit. Password set correctly. On first submit, err is true. Submit second time (password unchanged), err is correctly set to false.
        var err = true;
        $( "#signupform" ).submit(function( event ) {
            var span_supassword = $('#span_supassword');
            var password        = $("#supassword").val();
            $.ajax({
                url:        '/apps/ajax/signupvalidate.php',
                data:       'action=checkpassword&password=' + password,
                dataType:   'json',
                type:       'post',
                success:    function (j) {
                    if (j.passwordmsg) {
                        err = true;
                        span_supassword.html(j.passwordmsg);
                    }
                    else { err = false; }
                }
            });
            if (err) { event.preventDefault(); }
        });
Any ideas or suggestions?