Randomization failure: the 1969 draft lottery
During the early part of the Vietnam war, males could be exempt from serving in the military (and being sent to war) by attending college. Eventually this practice was ruled unfair (to people who couldn't afford college), so the college exemption was eliminated.
In 1969 the Selective Service organized a lottery to decide which boys would be drafted into the military . They decided to draft people by randomly selecting people by their birthdates as follows:
These numbers determined the order in which people would be drafted, and it was projected that about 10% of the males would be sent to Vietnam immediately after bootcamp and that another 10% would go to Vietnam within their period of enlistment.
- A piece of paper with each calendar day was put it in a capsule, and the capsule was dropped into a large bin set up like a hamster treadmill.
- The Head of the Selective Service stuck his hand into the bin and mixed things up for a few seconds, and then the bin was spun around for a few minutes.
- Blind-folded, the Selective Service Head reached in and pulled out a capsule--that date was assigned draft number #1, the next date was draft #2, until the last one was draft #366 (they included leap days).
What do you see wrong with this procedure ? (type answer in the box)