A U.S. judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday rejected a Republican-led lawsuit aimed at bolstering the vetting process for overseas voters – an effort that had sparked sharp criticism and concerns that it could disenfranchise thousands of Keystone State voters, including U.S. service members and their families.

The lawsuit was filed late last month by six out of eight House Republicans from Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation. The group had argued that the state law made it possible for overseas residents to register and vote in elections without proper identification. 

Voters can ‘receive a ballot by email and then vote a ballot without providing identification at any step in the process,’ the Republican plaintiffs alleged.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner dismissed the suit Tuesday as a ‘nonstarter,’ noting that the plaintiffs had waited too long to file their lawsuit, which seeks to update a law that has been on the books for 12 years. 

He also cited procedural issues with the case, noting they failed to produce evidence or articulate a ‘viable course of action.’

‘An injunction at this late hour would upend the Commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters, to say nothing of the state and county administrators who would be expected to implement these new procedures on top of their current duties,’ Conner said.

The push comes as Republicans in at least three swing states have sought to crack down on overseas voting in the final sprint to Election Day. The RNC and state-level groups in Michigan and North Carolina have also filed lawsuits in recent weeks seeking additional restrictions on a vetting and verification process they argue is devoid of proper safeguards.

The lawsuits sparked immediate protest from a group of House Democrats and former military members, who argued that the remedy sought by the plaintiffs was overly restrictive and risked disenfranchising thousands of U.S. service members stationed abroad. 

According to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), an estimated 1.6 million U.S. voters living overseas are eligible to vote in one of seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. 

The states, which carry a combined total of 93 Electoral College votes, are considered to be crucial in deciding the next president in a virtual dead heat race between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Pennsylvania has 19 on its own, giving it outsize importance in the election.

Earlier this month, a lawyer testified to the court that over 26,000 overseas ballots had already been cast in Pennsylvania. It’s unclear how many of those would be impacted by a court decision. 

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik claimed that the FBI is ‘covering up’ Iranian election interference to ‘tip the scales’ for Democrats. 

Stefanik, a Republican, told Fox News Digital the FBI has been stonewalling her ‘very basic, easy’ questions about the bureau’s knowledge of the Iran-linked hack of the Trump campaign in which data was then peddled to the Biden campaign and mainstream media news outlets.

‘I believe there was politicization from the Biden-Kamala Harris administration that they were notified prior to the Trump campaign to tip the scales,’ she claimed. ‘The FBI has functioned like an arm of the Democrat Party.’ 

The Trump campaign claimed in August it was hacked by Iran. In September, the Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed that Iran had hacked the campaign and indicted three Iranian nationals for their alleged role in the scheme. 

On Sept. 19, the FBI conducted a closed briefing with Stefanik and other members of the Intelligence Committee on foreign election interference. During the briefing, Stefanik said FBI officials appeared ‘panicked’ when she questioned them, but promised to follow up with answers.

After the briefing, Stefanik wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding answers by Oct. 7. 

The FBI then said it would deliver answers at an in-person briefing, according to Stefanik. Then they promised written answers — which never came. 

Stefanik has been demanding to know when and how the FBI learned of the Iranian hack of the Trump campaign, when the FBI notified both campaigns of the hack, whether the FBI knew who was responsible for peddling the information to the media and the Biden or Harris campaigns and whether the FBI had used Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to wiretap conversations related to the hack.

The hackers had created fake email accounts and impersonated current or former U.S. officials and then duped Trump campaign staff using spear phishing into clicking on emails that reportedly contained malware.

She said the FBI could reveal such information without impeding any investigations or revealing sources or classified information. 

‘I’m one of the longest serving members on House Intelligence Committee. When the FBI won’t answer questions, it’s because you’ve hit on something and they’re hiding something. They are corrupt to the core.’ 

Fox News Digital has reached out to the FBI for comment.

Stefanik also raised the issue in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal.

‘It is my duty to share with the American people what the FBI has failed to answer—and, I believe, is willfully covering up—about Iranian influence in the 2024 presidential election.’

Numerous intelligence reports have revealed that U.S. foes like Iran, Russia and China have made efforts to meddle in the November election. 

In September, Trump’s campaign said that intelligence officials warned the Republican candidate of ‘real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him.’

A report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), released Tuesday, found that ‘efforts by Iran to assassinate former President Donald Trump and other former U.S. officials’ are ‘likely to persist after voting ends, regardless of outcome.’

The report definitively said that Iran prefers Vice President Kamala Harris and will focus efforts on stopping Trump, and that Russia prefers Trump and will continue to attack Harris. 

A Microsoft report found last week that Iranian government-linked hackers have been scouring election websites in swing states for vulnerabilities. 

Last week, Iran built a fake online persona known as ‘Bushnell’s Men,’ calling on U.S. voters to sit out the election due to both candidates’ support of Israel’s military operations, the report found. 

Both Trump and his high-level officials who ordered the strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani in 2020 have faced death threats from Iran.

After the initial briefing, Stefanik demanded to know when and how the FBI learned of the Iranian hack of the Trump campaign, when the FBI notified both campaigns of the hack, whether the FBI knew who was responsible for peddling the information to the media and the Biden or Harris campaigns and whether the FBI had used Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to wiretap conversations related to the hack.  

With one week left till Election Day, former President Donald Trump is firing back at Vice President Kamala Harris and her team for spreading ‘a campaign of destruction and absolute hate.’ 

‘Very simply, Kamala Harris is the worst Vice President in history…Her message to Americans is all division and hate,’ Trump captioned in a video on his social media platform, Truth Social.

‘My message is about saving our economy, securing our border, and bringing together the greatest and broadest coalition in American history,’ Trump continued.

The former president addressed a room of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Tuesday, hours before Harris was set to deliver what her campaign has described as her closing speech on the Ellipse outside the White House, where she is expected to urge the country to turn the page on Trump. 

‘She’s running on a campaign of demoralization, and really a campaign of destruction. But really, perhaps more than anything else, it’s a campaign of hate. A campaign of absolute hate,’ Trump said. ‘I said yesterday that she’s a vessel. She is a vessel. It’s a very big powerful party with smart people … but they’re vicious, and they’re perhaps even trying to destroy our country.’

‘After two assassination attempts in just over three months, her lies and her slanders are very shameful and really inexcusable,’ Trump described, referring to the attempts on his life.

Much of the media unloaded on former President Trump’s historic Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, claiming it mirrored a Nazi rally at the famous venue in the 1930s despite an abundance of Jewish attendees and Israeli flags. Democrats including former President Bill Clinton have also held events at the famed arena. The NBA’s New York Knicks play their home games at Madison Square Garden. 

Thousands of Trump supporters packed the ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’ to hear remarks by high-profile speakers, including an address from former first lady Melania Trump, before the former president took the stage. But instead of observing a Republican nominee drawing a massive crowd in the middle of a blue city only nine days before the election, liberal pundits followed Vice President Kamala Harris’ lead of labeling Trump a fascist and comparing him to Adolf Hitler. 

MSNBC put a spotlight on the venue being where a pro-Nazi rally occurred in 1939, even though MSG has been rebuilt several times and the current addition wasn’t even completed until 1969. The network declared Trump’s event was ‘particularly chilling’ because it was held in the same arena that once hosted supporters of ‘a different fascist leader, Adolf Hitler.’

Then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt held an event at Madison Square Garden the year after the infamous 1939 event. 

Retired NYPD Inspector Paul Mauro called it ‘ridiculous’ to equate Trump’s rally with what went on at MSG in 1939.

‘Does the fact that you played the arena somehow make you Nazi adjacent? And let me tell you, for a Nazi rally there were an awful lot of Israeli flags in that building,’ Mauro said Monday on ‘America’s Newsroom.’

Stop Antisemitism founder and executive director Liora Rez also blasted the Hitler comparisons.

‘Equating either presidential nominee—or their supporters—to the Nazi regime is a dangerous trivialization of the real horrors committed by Hitler. It dishonors the millions who were murdered and the brave who fought to end his tyranny,’ Rez told Fox News Digital. 

Harris-Walz campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond also told ‘America’s Newsroom’ on Tuesday that ‘If you want to know why people call Trump Hitler, maybe you should start with JD Vance who did that.’

Richmond was referring to Vance calling Trump potentially ‘America’s Hitler’ and an ‘idiot’ prior to the 2016 election. Vance has since said he was wrong about Trump and is now on the 2024 Republican ticket.

‘Fascist was an answer to a question that was asked at a town hall and it was a direct question and the vice president gave a very direct answer,’ Richmond added. ‘And it’s consistent with the people who worked around him.’

Critics have heavily criticized the Harris campaign’s lack of focus and say the ‘joy’ isn’t resonating with voters.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, whose relatives perished during the Holocaust, said Democrats making Nazi comparisons their closing argument in the election is the ‘dumbest’ thing they could do politically. 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman, Brian Flood, and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report. 

The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that a ‘small number’ of North Korean troops are in Russia’s Kursk region near the Ukrainian border, adding that a couple of thousand more soldiers are expected to arrive at any time.

Last week, White House National Security communications director John Kirby confirmed that between early to mid-October, North Korea moved at least 3,000 troops into eastern Russia.

Now, the Pentagon says about 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and they are preparing to be sent to the battle lines alongside Russian troops in their fight against Ukraine.

‘We believe that the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] has sent approximately 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia, and that these troops will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,’ Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters during a news briefing Tuesday. ‘A portion of those soldiers have already moved closer to Ukraine towards Russia’s Kursk Oblast, near the border with Ukraine.’

Ryder said the troops are in addition to a couple of thousand others already in the Kursk region, adding the Department of Defense (DoD) is concerned that Russia intends to use the soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukraine.

‘Indications that there’s already a small number [of North Korean troops] that are actually in the Kursk Oblast, with a couple of thousand more that are either almost there, or due to arrive imminently,’ he said.

The Pentagon could not confirm whether the North Korean soldiers were in fact inside Ukraine, yet.

‘Initial indications are that these troops will be employed in some type of infantry role,’ Ryder reiterated. ‘But again, what that could be remains to be seen. So, we’re going to continue to monitor closely.’

Like the DoD, President Biden expressed concerns about North Korean soldiers preparing for battle against Ukraine in Russia.

After speaking about infrastructure in Baltimore on Tuesday, a reporter asked Biden if he was worried about North Korean troops in Russia.

‘I am concerned about it, yes,’ he said.

Biden was then asked if Ukrainians should strike back.

‘If they cross into Ukraine, yes,’ Biden said.

Intelligence officials in both South Korea and Ukraine had previously stated that North Korean troops were being transferred to Russia.

‘What exactly are they doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out,’ Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said.

Russia and North Korea have denied the troop movements.

South Korean National Intelligence Service Director Cho Tae-yong told lawmakers that North Korea plans to deploy 10,000 troops to Russia by December, a number that lines up with claims from Ukrainian intelligence.

South Korea said last week that it may start sending weapons to Ukraine in reaction to the deployment. Officials said their response would come in phases linked to the depth of cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

North Korea and Russia, locked in separate confrontations with the West, have sharply boosted their cooperation in the past two years. The U.S., South Korea and their partners have accused North Korea of supplying artillery shells, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia to help fuel its war against Ukraine in return for economic and military assistance. 

In June, Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pact stipulating mutual military assistance if either country is attacked.

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Greg Norman, as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report.