My "revision" field has a regular expression for validation set up:

When I reject the form, I get the following error:

I have the following javascript set up to ignore required fields:

$(document).ready(function(){

//Make comments required when rejecting, removing required fields
  $('.Reject').click(function() {    
    if($('#comments').val() == '')
    {
       alert('Please enter brief details into the Comments box before selecting this action');
       return false;
    }
    $('*[required]').each(function() { 
      $(this).removeClass('required')
      $(this).removeAttr('required');
    }); 
  });

})  //close document.ready

How do I get the rejection to also ignore the validation of the regular expression?