ATLANTA – Georgia election officials plan to remove nearly a half-million inactive voters from the registry.

It is one of the biggest planned purges in the country.

What they’re saying:

Blake Evans, elections director with the Secretary of State’s Office, says Georgia wants to maintain election integrity. “We want to make sure we have the most accurate voter list in the nation,” Evans said.

The agency will cancel about 455,000 inactive voter registrations in July. “We do this to keep our voter list accurate,” Evans said.

The Electronic Registration Information Center, ERIC, reports when a voter has moved out of state and is no longer eligible to vote. According to ERIC, 170,000 voters appear to have moved. The state says 100,000 people have not voted or had any contact with election officials for at least nine years.

“We want to ensure that voters who live here and are lawfully registered remain registered, and that anyone who moves out of state and has an outdated record gets their record removed following the lawful process,” Evans said.

Who it will affect

What we know:

Under Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law, voters can lose their registrations if they don’t remain in contact with election officials for five years and miss the next two general elections. Evans says the state is maintaining election integrity. “It’s very fair and it’s in accordance with state and federal laws,” Evans said.

The other side:

The plan is raising concerns from critics. Helen Butler, executive director of The Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, is skeptical. “That many people, I’m really concerned that eligible voters will be removed and shouldn’t be removed,” Butler said. “You still live in Georgia, you’re still a resident, you should be able to vote.”

Butler worries the cancelations could disenfranchise people with unreliable mail delivery, those who have lost their homes, and other legitimate registered voters. “There are a lot of people who are being removed just because they haven’t voted in an election cycle, two presidential election cycles,” Butler said. “People of color, those in underserved communities, and residents of rural areas often lack transportation to vote.”

What we don’t know:

The agency will publish a list of the planned cancelations in July. 

What’s next:

Voters will get the chance to contact county election officials to keep their registrations intact.

Kirby Smart estimated that about half his Georgia football roster is preparing for their first year with the team, either coming out of high school or the transfer portal.

And looking over the early returns in spring practice, the Bulldogs head coach laments that some of his prospects aren’t exactly the kind to take being coached too hard.

Some of them, he has said, almost feel offended by the idea.

“We have a lot of guys that put their hands up, they’re offended when you coach them,” Smart told reporters about some players’ attitude recently.

“We’ve had multiple NFL coaches come through here, go to practice, and they talk about how their players love to be coached, they love to be given a nugget, a technique that might help them play longer. Some of our guys are offended by it.”

He added: “‘You’re coaching me hard? You’re telling me I’ve got to play with effort?’ Some of them, I guess, have never been held to that standard. That standard’s not going to change here.”

Coaching will be something Georgia’s players have to take more of as the program embarks on a new era of sorts following the departure of quarterback Carson Beck.

With him goes much of the Bulldogs’ stability on the offensive side of the ball after he led the program to a 24-4 record and an SEC championship in his two years as starter.

After winning two straight national championships in 2021 and 2022, Georgia failed to qualify for the College Football Playoff in 2023 and lost in its first CFP game in 2024.

And while Smart still commands one of college football’s premier rosters, it appears he has some work to do getting them more receptive to being led.

“We have to coach it. That’s what they pay us to do. Coach them,” he said.

“They have to be willing to receive coaching, and on the whole, my whole preach after practice was, we got a lot of guys that put their hands up. They’re offended when you coach them. I’m not talking about the freshman, I’m talking about in general.”

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Take two!

The Georgia sorority sister who went viral for her glamorous mugshot photo landed in legal trouble — and in front of a jail camera — again Sunday when she was booked on a pair of new charges, according to records.

Lily Stewart, 20, was arrested just two weeks after she was initially pulled over and placed in custody on a speeding charge that was later dismissed.

The University of Georgia student, who is a member of the Alpha Chi sorority, was hit with fresh charges of obstruction of a law enforcement officer and loitering/prowling after she was arrested by campus police around 5:30 a.m., according to jail records from the Athens-Clarke County Sheriff’s Office.

Both charges are misdemeanors. More information about the circumstances around her arrest was not immediately known.

Stewart flashed a smile in her Sunday morning booking photo and appeared to wear prison garb, according to the pictures obtained by TMZ, which first reported on the sorority girl’s second arrest.

The coed was cut loose from detention later that morning after posting more than a $4,000 bond, according to jail records.

Her attorney, Stephen Morris, declined comment in an email to The Post Sunday evening about the new charges, but confirmed the speeding charge from March 8 has been dismissed.

Stewart lit up social media when her mugshot from her first arrest quickly went viral last week with the college student leaning into the newfound attention by posting her favorite comments on her TikTok page.

“I think it’s hilarious. I don’t know what all the hype is about. I just took a mugshot and went on with my day,” she told The Post last week.

“I love all the comments poking fun at me, saying, ‘She was on her way to Lululemon’ or ‘She must have had to [pee] really bad.’”

Stewart’s pristine jailhouse photo was a result of having her hair and makeup done for the birthday party she was trying to zoom to before she was stopped by a Georgia State Patrol officer.

“I was going to a friend’s birthday in Milledgeville, [Ga.] — and I had just gotten ready not long before, so that’s maybe why my makeup and hair still looked good,” she said.