It's hilarious how deeply ingrained the insanity is. Registering to vote is just not a thing outside the US. The percentage of people who come to vote, then vote is all of them.
The same sort of dogwhistles about 'voter fraud' have been getting airtime in the media as well so I'm sure it won't be long before we have widespread disenfranchisement, just like in the US.
It’s absolutely a thing in Australia and NZ, and in the world’s largest democracy, India, too.
https://www.aec.gov.au/enrol/ https://vote.nz/enrol-to-vote/enrol-check-or-update/ https://eci.gov.in/voter/voter-registration/
They simply cannot send every citizen a letter (or email).
(The UK is in the same boat)
There have been lots of updates though. Several states allow same-day registration and at least one state does not require registration at all.
For the UK, it might be more the UK mantra “if it ain’t completely and utterly broke, don’t fix it”. They tend to love traditions, even if they have become somewhat impractical.
For the UK, keeping a central register also was a bit easier than one would think, as women and most men didn’t have the right to vote until the middle/late 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1867:
“Before the Act, only one million of the seven million adult men in England and Wales could vote; the Act immediately doubled that number. Moreover, by the end of 1868 all male heads of household were enfranchised as a result of the end of compounding of rents.”
(If I understand it correctly, “compounding of rents” is where landlords pay the property taxes that renters have to pay, increasing rent accordingly. Because only those paying property tax were eligible to vote, a side effect was that many renters weren’t allowed to vote)