Selective Service System

The Selective Service System is an independent agency of the United States government that maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Virtually all male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of their 18th birthdays and must notify Selective Service within ten days of any changes to any of the information they provided on their registration cards, like a change of address. A 2010 GAO report estimated the registration rate at 92% with the names and addresses of over 16.2 million men on file. However, the only audit of the addresses of registrants on file with the Selective Service System, in 1982, found that 20-40% of the addresses on file with the Selective Service System for registrants in the age groups that would be drafted first were already outdated, and up to 75% for those registrants in their last year of potential eligibility to be drafted would be invalid.