Politics

Republicans target overseas voting, ensnaring service members

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans target overseas voting, ensnaring service members

Oct. 10, 2024, 10:36 PM UTC/Updated Oct. 22, 2024, 4:22 PM UTC

By Ya’han Jones

UPDATE (Oct. 22, 2024, 12:22 p.m. ET): State judges on Monday rejected Republican challenges to certain overseas ballots in separate lawsuits brought in Michigan and North Carolina.

As you’re likely aware, Republicans tend to portray themselves as the pro-military party. With its performative bravado and proneness to saber-rattlingthe Trump-led GOP has branded itself as the party most aligned with the armed services.

And yet, Republicans have been waging a quiet war on service members’ voting rights.

The latest example is a lawsuit filed by six House Republicans out of Pennsylvania, all of whom voted not to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The suit baselessly claims that their state’s process for voters who register overseas — a group that includes many service members and their families — is susceptible to election fraud.

The Washington Post noted that critics say the lawsuit could lead to thousands of eligible ballots being disqualified and added:

The lawsuit is notable for targeting a group of voters long thought to favor Republicans because of the prevalence of military personnel stationed overseas, but that is now seen as more evenly divided or even leaning Democratic. The suit adds to a long list of Republican-backed litigation around the country with just weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election, with much of it aimed at disqualifying mail-in votes or removing ineligible voters from rolls.

This is part of a trend we’ve been seeing play out in swing states, where Republicans have filed multiple lawsuits designed to needlessly sow doubt about the veracity of the election results and the electoral process. GOP officials have filed lawsuits in North Carolina and Michigan targeting overseas voting, as Donald Trump and Elon Musk push conspiracy theories about these voters.

And in Michigan, Republicans have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Gov. Gretchen Whitmer from using some Veterans Affairs offices in the state as voter registration sites. The suit has been denounced by veterans advocates.

All of this is odd, no?

With the GOP’s rhetoric, one might think that Republicans would steer clear of doing anything that could infringe on the voting rights of America’s service members. The fact that they are going scorched-earth with their conspiratorial legal attacks — and potentially harming military members in the process — shows how desperate they truly are as they seek to hoist Trump back into the White House.

Ya’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

10 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”