The
purpose of maintaining a registration list is to enable Selective
Service to reach draft-age men in an emergency. When a man
registers, Selective Service obtains a current mailing address
and informs each registrant that he is required by law to
report any changes in his address to Selective Service until
he reaches age 26. Although a significant number of address
changes are reported, registrants are a highly mobile segment
of the population. To actively ensure that registrants in
the prime draft age group—19 and 20 years old—can
be reached by mail in time of mobilization, the National Change
of Address System was developed.
The
program itself is very simple. The records of registrants
in the prime age group which have had no updates in the past
18 months, including those with undeliverable addresses, are
sent to a vendor licensed by the U.S. Postal Service. The
SSS records are matched against a data base containing all
change of address notices filed by the public in the last
36 months at post offices in the United States. This procedure
is performed once a year for registrants about to turn 20
years old.
If
a match is found and the date of the address change is more
recent than the date of the registrant's last record update,
changes will be made to the registrant's current record.
The
National Change of Address System confirms the accuracy of
nearly two million registrants' records every year. By using
this approach for address maintenance, SSS ensures that the
files are accurate to reach draft-eligible registrants in
the event of a national emergency.
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