A war draft cannot work today. Let us go through the possibilities.

Two proposals that would radically change the current system for registering Americans for future military service were recently introduced in Congress without a hearing or debate.

They raise practical questions about whether a draft would even be possible today.

As part of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act The house agreed this month to make registration in the Selective Service System “automatic” for all draft-eligible men between the ages of 18 and 26. In addition, Version of the NDAA on its way to the Senate would now extend conscription registration to young women.

The debate over the draft has usually been about whether the United States “needs” a draft. The debate over women and the draft has been about whether women “should” be required to register. But the bigger question we must ask is threefold: Will women register voluntarily (if registration is not, in fact, “automatic”), is “automatic” registration based on other databases feasible, and can registration or conscription – for men and/or women – be enforced at all.

As I was invited to testify Before the National Commission for Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS) in 2019, I told them that “any proposal that includes a mandatory element is a naive fantasy unless it includes a credible enforcement plan and budget… Women are more likely than men to resist compulsory military conscription, and more people will support them in their resistance.”

Anti-war feminists have long equated militarism and war with patriarchy, and women were an important part of the anti-conscription movements even when only men were drafted. At its national convention in 2022, the National Organization for Women adopted a resolution which “calls for an end to compulsory military registration” and supports the Conscription Abolition Act of 2021.

The sole purpose of the Selective Service database is to facilitate the prompt and verifiable delivery of draft notices to individuals selected by lot if and when Congress establishes a draft. Verifiable delivery by certified mail or personal delivery, not by email or telephone, is required to provide proof of receipt sufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that failure to report for the draft was “knowingly and willfully”—an element of any criminal violation of the Military Selective Service Act.

I was one of only twenty people prosecuted in the 1980s for openly refusing to register for military service. Our public statements were used as evidence that our refusal was “knowing and deliberate.” Unregistered people learned from our show trials that silence was as safe as community.

observance has continued to decline and enforcement of the registration requirement has been leave in 1988. As a result, the Selective Service database is so inaccurate and incomplete that it is “less than uselessfor an actual draft, as Dr. Bernard Rosker, former director of the Selective Service System, testified to the NCMNPS.

Currently, men not only have to register at the age of 18, but also have to report every change of address to the Selective Service System within ten days until they reach the age of 26.

“Absolutely no one” is informing the Selective Service System of their move, as the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said in his opinion Opening a hearing with members of the NCMNPS in 2021. Most draft notices would either be returned as undeliverable or delivered to the parents of the registrants at addresses where the registrants no longer reside. And no doubt many parents, like me pointed out would destroy a draft notice to NCMNPS in order to protect their child from being drafted.

The Selective Service database does not include many young men who do not voluntarily register, especially in states such as California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where registration with the Selective Service is not a requirement for obtaining a driver’s license. But Laws in other states that automatically register drivers with the Selective Service System create the opposite error of agreement.

For example, not all driver’s license holders are eligible for draft. Foreign students and H-1 visa holders, many of whom are of military age, are considered “Non-immigrants” who are neither eligible nor obligated to be drafted. The registration of all driver’s license applicants in some states has produced a list of hundreds of thousands of undrafted nonimmigrants who are ineligible for drafting and who are legally free to ignore any draft notice.

“Automatic” registration sounds deceptively simple. In practice, trying to base Selective Service registration on other existing federal databases would be a recipe for an even bigger fiasco.

Aggregating and reconciling data collected for different purposes and stored in different formats is difficult, and the track record of large government information technology projects is poor.

The bill that passed the House of Representatives would give the Selective Service System unprecedented authority to adopt regulations requiring any other Federal agency or body to release in bulk all records that could be used to identify or locate potential draftees.

This would need to include at least Social Security and IRS records. Immigration and visa documents The list would also have to be cross-checked and analyzed by the Selective Service to distinguish draft-eligible immigrants from non-draft-eligible non-immigrants. However, the resulting list would contain outdated addresses for many potential draftees.

In the United States, unlike some other countries, only persons subject to military service or under judicial supervision following a conviction are required to report any change of address to a government agency.

The NCMNPS investigated the possibility of “passive” registration for military service based on other existing databases, but ultimately ruled out this option. Memo from NCMNPS research staffreleased in response to one of my Freedom of Information Act requests following the dissolution of the NCMNPS, concluded that no other federal agency even attempts to include current addresses of all U.S. citizens in its records.

Only those who were assigned male sex at birth entitled to be drafted or to register with the Selective Service System. But no current federal database provides reliable information on sex assigned at birth.

Individuals can choose their preferred gender – “M”, “F” or “X” – to be used on US passports And Social Security records, regardless of the sex assigned at birth. The same applies to driving licenses in Californiaand from records kept by a growing number of other states and foreign countries. Births are registered by state and local offices, not federal agencies. No state or federal agency maintains copies of birth certificates of persons born abroad.

Trying to determine who is required to register and who is not would therefore lead to a gender-specific quagmire.

The supposed availability of the draft allows unlimited wars to be planned without worrying about whether people are willing to fight them. But it is long past time, as I told NCMNPS, to recognize that draft registration has failed, whether you like it or not. Draft registration is not a viable policy option to rely on in military planning, even as a fallback. Instead of making futile attempts to save, let alone expand, the current failed draft registration system, Congress should repeal the law on military service and complete contingency planning and preparation for each draft.