Eligible men will soon be automatically registered for military draft

[24601]

12. Draft Registration doesn't make you eligible to be drafted into military service. It instead includes your name among

those for whom a future draft board may evaluate for draft eligibility. It's the first step in a two-step process where your local draft board makes a non-ministerial substantive determination. Follow-on actions, such as mailing you a notice of the board's determination, are ministerial functions that are exercised without making substantive decisions.

By contrast, voter registration combines the first two steps in the draft process. In voting registration, not only is your name incorporated on voter rolls, but actual voting eligibility is determined. After voting registration is complete, further steps are ministerial. and not substantial. Things like asking for your ID, or otherwise verifying your identity, comparing signatures, ensuring you are present at the correct voting place, and determining if you have already voted are ministerial functions in which voting officials do not determine if you are actually eligible to vote in the first place. That was done during registration, and after that, voting officials are just supposed to verify your identity, ensuring you receive the correct ballot, and process your ballot for counting.

Thanks for asking the question - it's important that people understand the differences in the draft and voting processes.

For context, the last men drafted in the US were inducted on June 30, 1973. The notifications for that induction had been issued on December 7, 1972. I had a low number and would have been in that group if I had not already been in the Army since July 3, 1972. With respect to voting, I served as a (2008 primary election) check-in judge and later as a (2008 general election) chief judge in our Maryland precinct. After my job transfer to Florida, I had no desire to be part of their process.