Do You Have To Register For Selective Service To Vote

Men who don't register for the draft by historic period 26 often have problems later in life with federal and state benefits
More than 1 million men take requested a formal confirmation of their draft condition since 1993
The most mutual consequences for failing to annals are a loss of student aid, citizenship, and federal employment

For 39 years, information technology's been a rite of passage for American men. Within 30 days of his 18th altogether, every male citizen and legal resident is required to register for Selective Service, either by filling out a postcard-size form or going online.

What's less well known is what happens on a man'southward 26th birthday.

Men who fail to annals for the typhoon by then can no longer do so – forever endmost the door to government benefits like student assistance, a government job or even U.S. citizenship.

Men under 26 tin can get those benefits past taking reward of what has finer get an eight-twelvemonth grace menstruum, signing upwardly for Selective Service on the spot.

Later that, an entreatment can be costly and time-consuming. Selective Service statistics suggest that more than than 1 meg men have been denied some government benefit because they weren't registered for the draft.

With the current male-just draft requirement declared unconstitutional, Congress will have to decide whether to eliminate Selective Service registration or expand information technology to women.

Historic ruling:With women in combat roles, a federal court declares male-simply draft unconstitutional

Unable to decide that question for decades, Congress created the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service in 2016. It's studying the futurity of the draft with a study due next yr.

Among the issues it's examining: Should draft registration be mandatory? If so, what's fairest style to enforce it? Should the aforementioned consequences that have followed men for nearly 4 decades also apply to women?

Brandon Prudhomme works on a yard in Beaumont, Texas March 27. Prudhomme, who works as a landscaper and dishwasher, can't get student loans to go back to school because he didn't register for Selective Service before he turned 26.

"We're taking a look at all of these questions," says Vice Chairwoman Debra Wada, a old assistant secretarial assistant of the Army. "And that ways looking at whether the current system is both fair and equitable – only too transparent."

Men who have been caught in the over-26 trap say the system is anything but.

Since 1993, more than than 1 1000000 American men take requested a formal copy of their typhoon status from the Selective Service System, according to data obtained past USA TODAY under the Freedom of Data Act. Those status-data letters are the first step in trying to entreatment the denial of benefits, and are the best indication of how many men have been impacted by legal consequences of failing to register.

More:Should women be required to register for the military draft?

On paper, information technology's a crime to "knowingly neglect or fail or refuse" to register for the typhoon. The penalization is up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Last year, Selective Service referred 112,051 names and addresses of suspected violators to the Justice Section for possible prosecution.

Still, merely xx men have been criminally charged with refusing to register for the draft since President Jimmy Carter reinstated information technology in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only fourteen were convicted. The last indictment, in 1986, was dismissed before it went to trial.

So at present the system relies largely on voluntary compliance, a patchwork of land laws, and the risk of losing federal benefits.

Congress passed ii provisions to tighten enforcement in the 1980s. The Solomon amendment in 1982 fabricated Selective Service registration a requirement for federal student aid. The Thurmond Amendment in 1985 did the same for federal employment.

Federal educatee aid is the most common problem for men who haven't registered for the typhoon, according Selective Service data obtained past USA TODAY.

Forty states and the District of Columbia link Selective Service to a driver's license. But some of those allow men to opt out of registration, and well-nigh a quarter of Americans in their early 20s don't have a driver's license.

Thirty-one states accept legislation mirroring federal laws on pupil help and employment, applying those bans to state-funded student aid programs and state employment.

Some states go even further:

► In eight states, men are non allowed men to register at a state college or academy – even without financial aid – if they aren't registered for Selective Service. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Tennessee.

► In Ohio, men who live in the state simply don't register for Selective Service must pay out-of-state tuition rates.

► In Alaska, men who fail to register for the draft can't receive an annual dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which gave Alaska residents $1,600 from state oil acquirement in 2018.

As a result, registration rates vary from 100 percentage in New Hampshire to 63 per centum in North Dakota – and just 51 percent in the District of Columbia, according to Selective Service data.

"It'southward very uneven across the land," said Shawn Skelly, a sometime Navy commander and fellow member of the eleven-member commission studying the draft.

"How people register is predominately passively. Almost men who register, register though secondary ways when they use for educatee aid or get a commuter's license. There isn't a real deliberate teaching of people about the law."

Similar the Vietnam War draft that helped fuel the social upheaval of the 1960s and '70s, today's draft registration requirement puts a disproportionate burden on lower-class Americans. They're more likely to put off higher until later in life – and to need student aid when they do get to school.

In comments to the national service commission, critics of the policy called that policy "exceptionally cruel."

'It was an honest mistake'

Brandon Prudhomme works on a yard in Beaumont, Texas.

Depending on how you await at information technology, Brandon Prudhomme either had a very good or very bad reason for failing to register for the draft: He was in prison for nigh of the fourth dimension between the ages of 18 and 25.

His arrest record includes assault, drug possession and resisting arrest.

"It was an honest mistake," he said. "I was on my own since I was 14 years old. I got involved in gang-type stuff."

Only at present he's 39 and trying to turn his life around. While living in a homeless shelter, he started his own landscaping company "with 2 rakes and four lawn bags," he said.

He'd like to get back to school for business organisation. Simply since Prudhomme didn't annals for Selective Service, he can't get student loans. "The financial aid people called me and said, 'Sir, do yo know annihilation near Selective Service?' I said no. They said my application had been crimson-flagged," he said.

"If it was mandatory, how was in that location not the opportunity for me to sign those papers?" Prudhomme asked. "He said that was my responsibility."

The law has likewise snagged federal data technology workers, Woods Service firefighters, Veterans Administration doctors and even federal contractors.

Richard Henry, a contractor for the Internal Acquirement Service, lost his access to IRS facilities because he failed to register for Selective Service. They plant out because Henry told them, repeatedly, beginning in 2001. But in 2011, the IRS changed the rules to brand Selective Service a requirement. He was over 26, and so he couldn't register.

So he sued, and lost in 2017.

"If they're going to enforce this law, yous should know about the law and y'all should know about the consequences," said Henry'south lawyer, Rachel L.T. Rodriguez. "The problem here is, you lot don't know the consequences that follow yous forever like this."

Just officials say that for typhoon registration to work, the law has to have teeth.

"If in that location were no penalties for failing to register, the rates would plummet, and fairness and equity would get out the window," said Matthew Tittman, a spokesman for the Selective Service Arrangement, a civilian agency that administers draft registration.

Men who are over 26 and denied benefits tin can entreatment the decision if they can prove that their failure to register was not "knowing and willful."

Information technology's unclear how many men succeed. The Role of Personnel Management says it got 160 requests for waivers in the last fiscal twelvemonth. The Department of Education would non release data or discuss its process on the tape.

And proving that someone didn't intentionally evade the draft tin exist plush and time consuming, taking as long as 18 months to decide.

Marc J. Smith, a Rockville, Maryland, federal employment lawyer who handles such cases, says the procedure can price $iii,500 to $4,000 in legal fees.

An entreatment can involve researching when and where the Selective Service sent reminder messages, and gathering sworn statements from parents, childhood friends and school officials.

The cases rarely make it to court. The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the courts didn't accept jurisdiction over federal employment cases because in that location was an authoritative process to handle those claims.

Even if Congress eliminates the draft, Smith said, it'south unclear whether those old penalties will go abroad.

"People volition all the same have this outcome," he said. "And I guess that means a much larger puddle of potential clients for me."