1. United States
2. R.I.
3. Letter

I write to urge you to oppose the implementation or expansion of automatic Selective Service registration and to support policies that expand automatic voter registration (AVR) instead. Congress has already enacted automatic Selective Service registration in Section 535 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (2025), which replaces individual self-registration with automatic registration by the Director of the Selective Service System. The law further authorizes the government to obtain identifying information needed for registration, including a person’s date of birth, address, Social Security account number, phone number, and email address, and the Selective Service System has stated that it intends to implement this change by December 2026 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, 2025; Selective Service System, 2026a, 2026b). In my view, expanding interagency transfer of this volume of sensitive personal data for draft administration creates unnecessary privacy and cybersecurity risk without delivering a democratic benefit. There is also a compelling historical reason for caution. During the Vietnam era, the draft became highly controversial, was widely perceived as inequitable, and helped intensify domestic protest, mistrust, and resistance. The National Archives documents the “war at home” as a central feature of the Vietnam period, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund notes that backlash among draft-eligible men was a major factor in turning public sentiment against the war effort (National Archives, 2022; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, n.d.). We should not modernize conscription infrastructure in a way that makes a deeply divisive system easier to activate and administer. By contrast, automatic voter registration serves a fundamentally democratic purpose. Research shows that AVR substantially increases registration and produces measurable gains in turnout over time. McGhee et al. (2021) find that AVR raises registration rates substantially and increases eligible turnout. Morris and Dunphy (2019) found statistically significant registration gains in every jurisdiction they studied, ranging from 9.4% to 93.7%. Garnett (2022) likewise concludes that automatic voter registration is one of the major recent registration innovations capable of improving registration coverage and turnout, especially for populations that have historically been underrepresented. Kim (2023) further found that automatic reregistration for movers increased turnout by 5.8 percentage points in Orange County, California. AVR also improves election administration. The National Conference of State Legislatures explains that AVR uses information already gathered by participating government agencies and transmits it electronically to election officials to create or update voter records, while still allowing individuals to opt out (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2025). That structure reduces dependence on paper processing and helps keep voter rolls more current. Research on modernized voter registration systems has also found meaningful administrative savings: for example, one cost study reported that moving away from paper registration could save local jurisdictions an average of about $3.54 in labor costs per registration, while California’s modernization efforts were estimated to generate millions in net savings over time (Burd-Sharps & Guyer, 2015; Chapin & Kuennen, n.d.). If Congress is going to rely on government databases to automate anything, it should automate democratic inclusion, not draft readiness. For these reasons, I respectfully ask you to oppose any further legislative, regulatory, or appropriations efforts that facilitate automatic Selective Service registration and to support robust automatic voter registration at the federal and state levels. At minimum, Congress should prioritize policies that lower barriers to voting, improve the accuracy of voter rolls, reduce administrative burden, and strengthen democratic participation. Policies that make voting easier strengthen the republic; policies that make conscription more efficient do not. Thank you for your time and public service. References Burd-Sharps, S., & Guyer, P. N. (2015). The costs of modernizing voter registration systems: A case study of California and Arizona. Social Science Research Council. Chapin, D., & Kuennen, D. (n.d.). The cost (savings) of reform: An analysis of local registration-related costs and potential savings through automatic voter registration. Responsive Government / Center for Secure and Modern Elections. Garnett, H. A. (2022). Registration innovation: The impact of online registration and automatic voter registration in the United States. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, 21(1), 34–45. Kim, S.-Y. S. (2023). Automatic voter reregistration as a housewarming gift: Quantifying causal effects on turnout using movers. American Political Science Review, 117(3), 1137–1144. McGhee, E., Hill, C., & Romero, M. (2021). The registration and turnout effects of automatic voter registration. SSRN. Morris, K., & Dunphy, P. (2019). AVR impact on state voter registration. Brennan Center for Justice. National Archives. (2022, June 17). Vietnam War: The war at home. National Conference of State Legislatures. (2025, July 21). Automatic voter registration. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, Pub. L. No. 119-60, § 535, 139 Stat. 718 (2025). Selective Service System. (2026a). About Selective Service. Selective Service System. (2026b). Fiscal year 2026–2030 strategic plan. The White House. (2025, December 18). Congressional bill S. 1071 signed into law. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. (n.d.). The draft.