Fry was approved twice for a pass to Mars, yet gave up his seat to Leela. However, if you look closely, he never got a second ticket (nothing came out of the machine the second time), so he couldn't just give Leela another ticket.
All electronic devices on earth were disrupted because of the solar activity yet Bender, robot policemen, and the "Choosematron" were still able to function. Bender explains this by revealing that he switched to winding power. The others must have also been switched to some alternative power source.