Then a month or two before my 18th birthday, I got a postcard saying I had been auto-registered. It was a rather disappointing denouement.
If it hasn’t been used in 50 years, is there some other use for the registry or the organization or why hasn’t this been cut yet?
The Selective Service auto-registers people from various data sources.
But this puts me in a weird spot: I've never actually registered. I am registered. But I did not register - which is the requirement.
There are Kafka-esque parts of the US government where this distinction could matter.
Informally, it's put forward as one of the most successful government programs in history: it succeeds at all it's objective, comes in at or under budget, employs few people, and avoids the scope creep that kills other successful programs.
It's only shortcoming: it doesn't actually do anything.