I've seen plenty of references in historical accounts of politics (covering the mid-20C, mostly) to the annual voter rolls, though I don't remember the actual term offhand. They came out once a year, you could only vote if you were on them, and especially in times of mass shiftings of population, like wartime, whether an election was held before or after the roll came out made a big difference.
Not being able to vote until the next annual roll doesn't strike me as being compatible with individual registration, still less so if the roll is generated from scratch annually. Here in the US, where you do have to register, pleas like Corbyn's for the eligible to register are commonplace. I've never heard one from a British politician before, though of course I could easily have missed it happening many times. But we've never had annual rolls here; once you register you're in as soon as your registration is processed, and you stay in until either you're known to no longer be an eligible voter in the district (death reported, re-register somewhere else thus demonstrating you've moved) or miss a given number of general elections.
Not being able to vote until the next annual roll doesn't strike me as being compatible with individual registration, still less so if the roll is generated from scratch annually. Here in the US, where you do have to register, pleas like Corbyn's for the eligible to register are commonplace. I've never heard one from a British politician before, though of course I could easily have missed it happening many times. But we've never had annual rolls here; once you register you're in as soon as your registration is processed, and you stay in until either you're known to no longer be an eligible voter in the district (death reported, re-register somewhere else thus demonstrating you've moved) or miss a given number of general elections.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_registration_in_the_United_Kingdom#Individual_Electoral_Registration
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Calls for people to register are not uncommon and getting more common. Partly driven by Individual Voter Registration.
I think it was more common for it to be part of the Get Out The Vote operation a few decades ago.
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