The Georgia secretary of state’s office is adding 22,000 previously-canceled voter registrations back to the “inactive” voter list ahead of a scheduled federal court hearing over the issue Thursday.

In a press release, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the registrations belong to Georgians who last had contact with elections officials between January and May of 2012.

More than 117,000 of the 308,753 registrations moved to canceled status Monday night were people declared inactive through the state’s “use it or lose it law” that allows the state to cancel a voter registration after an extended period without voting.

MORE: Judge OKs Purge Of 300,000 Inactive Voter Registrations

“We are proactively taking additional steps to prevent any confusion come the day of the election,” Raffensperger said in a press release. “We are taking the unprecedented step to give certain individuals who have been identified as having moved and in need of updating their information additional time to vote or contact their county elections office to update their registration.” 

This week, elections officials also said that more than 4,500 Georgia voters removed themselves from the purge list by updating their registrations, voting in the November municipal elections or contacting election officials since making the purge list public, and about 5,000 total voters since beginning the removal process in September.

RELATED: About 4,500 Georgians Reactivated Voter Registrations Ahead Of Purge Deadline

The reversal comes after voting rights group Fair Fight Action had an outside expert analyze the purge list this week, and found more than 22,000 registrations that should not have been purged under the state's rules.

Previous Georgia law moved voters to inactive status after three years of no contact with elections officials or voting, and set them up for removal after missing two subsequent federal election cycles, or about seven years.

HB 316, signed earlier this year, extended that period before inactivity to five years, or nine total years of not voting or having contact with voter registration officials before cancellation.

On Monday, Fair Fight filed an emergency order seeking to block Georgia from purging those no-contact voters, citing the recent law change. But Judge Steve Jones allowed the complete cancelation to proceed after the state said reinstating any voters to inactive status would take 24 to 48 hours.

The decision comes hours before Jones is set to hear arguments about whether the full 117,771 no-contact voters should be reinstated.

It was not immediately clear how the state’s decision will affect the judge’s decision.

Voters can check and update their registration online at the state’s My Voter Page at any time.

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