Dennis Rodman has decided to put his popularity to good use, auctioning off a dinner with him in Los Angeles to raise money for a Black voting effort.
In support of the Black Voters Matter Fund, Rodman will give the winning bidder and a friend two signed custom jerseys and the chance to break bread with the NBA legend.
Rodman posted the fundraiser on Charitybuzz, and it has already reached a $3,500 bid from 11 bidders. The auction ends on June 18, leaving about a week left of bidding.
Darren Prince, Rodman's spokesman, told TMZ that he wanted to get involved because of the recent protests over George Floyd's killing.
"Dennis Rodman is so disappointed at all the rioting and looting in light of the tragic death of George Floyd that he's auctioning off himself for dinner for two lucky guests with all the proceeds going to benefit the Black Voters Matter Fund," Prince told TMZ.
The Black Voters Matter Fund is an advocacy group that is "dedicated to expanding Black voter engagement and increasing progressive power."
On its website, the organization said it's working to improve voter registration, policy advocacy and organizational development and will occasionally fund election activities.
"Our goal is to increase power in our communities," its website states. "Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny."
The group was active on Tuesday during the voting crisis in Georgia, where several majority Black precincts reported malfunctions, shortages and hours-long waits.
“We’ve received reports about long lines, polling sites that have opened late and broken machines. What’s disturbing is that these problems appear widespread, and not isolated. It has been most disturbing to hear about voters who have given up. Voters who were not able to withstand the long wait times, voters who had one shot this morning. Those are people who may be flatly disenfranchised,” Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told Politico Tuesday.
Politico also spoke to LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, who explained what was happening.
“We have got to stop making voting a traumatic damn experience for Black voters. Everything has to be a traumatic experience. The secretary of state needs to resign…They always blame it on local officials. I come over to this side of town, and white folks are strolling in. On my side of town, we brought stadium chairs,” Brown explained to Politico, adding that she nearly cried when she drove to the white suburbs of Atlanta to see voting precincts there.
The group posted throughout the day as more complaints about a litany of issues continued to roll in. The problems, ranging from faulty machines to lack of staff, are the same ones that plagued Georgia's last election cycle in 2018.
City and state officials in Georgia are now trading confusing statements with conflicting information.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms wrote a series of tweets Tuesday morning that described machines not working at multiple voting precincts in the city.
Photos of long lines and people who had been waiting more than six hours to vote flooded Twitter and Facebook. Yet, despite all of the reported issues across the state, Georgia Republicans and voting officials deflected responsibility to local entities.
In a statement, Gabriel Sterling, the statewide voting implementation manager, blamed the counties for their own "poor planning, limited training, and failures of leadership."
“So far, we have no reports of any actual equipment issues. We do have reports of equipment being delivered to the wrong locations and delivered late. We have reports of poll workers not understanding setup or how to operate voting equipment,” Sterling said.
