One branch of the U.S. Congress voiced its opinion on the possibility of a military draft Tuesday, but members of the Senate have yet to vote on the issue.

Despite the landslide 402-2 vote in the House of Representatives defeating a bill that would have made it mandatory for all young people ages 18 to 26 to commit two years of military service, the matter is not completely resolved.

A twin bill still sits in the armed forces committee of the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., proposed the bill in January 2003 in conjunction with the House bill proposed by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

"He proposed it because he truly does believe that a draft could help our country if it was reinstated," said Hollings' spokeswoman Jocelyn Hudson.

However, because Hollings is retiring after the November elections, the Senate bill is unlikely to reach a hearing.

"It will die when he retires, so there's no possibility that it will be passed under his name," Hudson said.

The Senate bill has less than a month to survive in committee and will then retire along with its author. If the Senate votes in any way similar to the House of Representatives, Hollings' bill has little chance.

Republicans in the House who called the vote tried to silence a scourge of rumors that have plagued the inboxes and conversations of young people worried about the possibility of a mandatory military draft.

House leadership may have decided to call a vote on the draft bill to silence rumors of a conspiracy to reinstate the plan if President George W. Bush is re-elected, said Paul Feenstra, spokesman for Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa.

"This issue of the draft started off as an Internet hoax," Feenstra said. "It's been used recently as a political tool to, in essence, stir up concern among the voters of a secret plan to reinstate the draft, which is totally false."

Many of the rumors stem from a circulating e-mail message accusing the Bush administration of attempting to reinstate the draft while the public's attention is focused on the upcoming presidential election.

However, the bills referenced in the message were proposed by Rangel and Hollings, both Democrats. The e-mail also states that the mandatory draft would begin in June 2005.

Internet and e-mail messages added only one dimension to the draft rumors that have been circulating, however.

The combination of coincidence and election year scrutiny has recently turned out more rumors surrounding the Selective Service, the government institution that would oversee drafting citizens if Congress and the president decided it was necessary.

Some in the public drew conclusions that the service was preparing for a draft when it advertised for volunteers to fill positions on draft boards, when in fact the 20-year terms filled in the 1980s began to expire and needed to be refilled.

The Selective Service has been seeking volunteers to fill empty positions on the nearly 1,200 draft boards across the country, swelling rumors of an impending draft, said Selective Service spokesman Pat Schuback.

Boards are set up to hear appeals from people who decide for moral or religious reasons that they cannot perform military duty if drafted.

Since former President Jimmy Carter passed legislation to again require the registration of 18- to 25-year-old males in 1980, the Selective Service has had to find volunteers for draft boards.

Many of the original 20-year terms have expired recently, prompting the Selective Service to advertise for volunteers, Schuback said.

"Unfortunately it was misinterpreted in the news," he said.

When one news organization used that information to insinuate a potential draft, the rumors began, Schuback said.

Notices asking for draft board volunteers were removed from the Selective Service and Department of Defense Web sites to prevent rumors from spreading, he said.

Rumors of an impending draft also prompted the Selective Service to post a notice on its Web site to get the facts to the public, Schuback said.

Until the House reached a decision on the bill Tuesday, the Selective Service Web site stated that, despite "recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces -- either with a special skills or regular draft. Rather, the agency remains prepared to manage a draft if and when the President and the Congress so direct."

Now, visitors to www.sss.gov get a debriefing on the actions of Congress to defeat the mandatory draft bill.

The Selective Service always receives calls from citizens interested in the requirements or the possibility of a draft, but the hype surrounding this election year has added to those inquiries, Schuback said.

"This is an election year and certainly it seems like there's a lot of charges by political candidates that there might be a potential draft if a certain party is elected or re-elected," he said.

But until Congress, with the support of the president, approves the reinstatement of a draft, the Selective Service only prepares for that call.

"If they need us to crank up the draft, then we're prepared to do that," Schuback said.

Few issues carry the sensitivity the draft does when it comes to young people, said Penn State political science professor James Eisenstein.

This is particularly true among college students, he said.

"On college campuses, people don't relish the idea of being drafted, sent overseas and killed," he said. "Nothing stimulates political activity and motivation like that."

Some factors that could lead to a draft have become more obvious in the last year, such as the "questionable" success in Iraq, Eisenstein said.

"It seems to me that the conditions that might lead to the reinstitution of a draft are moving in that direction," he said.

But the circulating e-mail message has been the most persistent fuel for the rumors and was possibly the motivation behind Republican House leaders' decision to vote on the draft bill.

"Despite the fact that it's nothing more than an Internet hoax, it's been used recently by some politicians to try to stir up the public," Feenstra said. "That may be why they felt it was necessary to put an end to the rumor and to demonstrate to the American public that Congress does not support a draft."

Accusing Republicans of calling the vote as an election year maneuver, Rangel urged fellow Democrats Tuesday to defeat the bill. Reps. John Murtha, D-Pa, and Pete Stark, D-Calif., voted in its favor.

Though he was opposed to the war in Iraq, Rangel composed the draft bill because he felt military service should be shared by all economic classes in society, said spokesman Emile Milne.

"We're aware of a campaign of e-mails that say that President Bush has a secret plan to reinstate the draft next year," he said. "Mr. Rangel believes that it is more likely a draft will come into being if President Bush is re-elected."

Since the 2003 proposal, Rangel has not actively campaigned for the bill, Milne said.

"He also felt ... that it would be probably less likely that we would enter a war if a draft had been in effect at the time," he said. "More individuals including ... members of Congress would have a personal stake in it."

Presidential candidates Bush and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry have taken stances on the draft issue, but mixed messages have persisted.

Kerry responded to a question about the draft at a forum two weeks ago saying, "If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you."

The Bush administration has consistently denied plans to reinstate a draft to send more troops overseas.

On a campaign stop in Iowa on Tuesday, Bush said, "We will not have a draft so long as I am president of the United States."

Also in Iowa Tuesday, Kerry addressed reporters and said, "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to pursue a policy that guarantees we don't have to have a draft."

The public assumption that the military is in need of volunteers to serve in Iraq may also be feeding the rumors of a coming draft. And wartime is typically not good for recruitment numbers, Eisenstein said.

"It's not unrealistic to project that enlistments in both the National Guard and the regular armed forces are going to go down," he said. "If the demand for troops on the ground continues, then the need to have a draft is going to increase."

So far, the Department of Defense has not asked Congress to take action on sending more troops to serve in the Middle East, Feenstra said.

"The defense department at this point has not requested more troops," he said. "Congressman Peterson is more than willing to work with the defense department if they should determine there is a need."

With voter registration drives and activism, Eisenstein said he has never seen such intense political involvement on campus since the '70s.

"This will probably be the most important election students will see in their lifetime," Eisenstein said. "Never has an election been this important."

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report