For the past week, representatives from the League of Young Voters Education Fund have been working an unusual shift. From 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., members of the group have been prowling bars and clubs looking for -- and finding -- unregistered voters.

"We're looking for those folks who might not proactively go out and register," said Khari Mosley, national political field director for the League of Young Voters Education Fund. At a news conference yesterday, he said the group had registered more than 1,000 voters in the last week alone and nearly 2,000 this year.

For the League of Young Voters, and many other political, civic and religious groups, yesterday marked the end of a record voter registration push in advance of the November general election.

As of yesterday's registration deadline, the Pennsylvania Department of State had tallied 8,599,513 registered voters -- the highest known total in state history. The department should have a final registration number by the final week of October.

Statewide, those numbers include 4,387,027 registered Democrats and 3,217,464 registered Republicans, with 431,161 voters with no affiliation and 563,861 other voters.

In Allegheny County, elections division manager Mark Wolosik is expecting a total of about 950,000 voters -- the highest number since the 1940s, when the county's population was larger than it is today.

But at the County Office Building yesterday, the scene was almost anticlimactic, with traffic confined to a steady dribble of voters signing up at registration tables lining a sixth-floor hallway.

"We never had a mad rush of people," said Mr. Wolosik. "We aren't as busy as we were four years ago. This is relatively calm for a presidential last day."

He attributed the relative calm to the fact that so many had registered in advance of the primary this year -- as opposed to previous years, when both parties' nominees were decided before the Pennsylvania primary.

In 1984, Allegheny County saw 100,000 people register to vote in between the primary and the general election, he said; in 2004, that number was 61,000. This year, he's predicting about 45,000.

About 5,000 of those came in from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. yesterday, he said, when campaign workers and other groups dropped off large stacks of registration forms.

With voter registration now over, political and civic groups are focusing on efforts to educate voters and promote turnout. The Pittsburgh chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which represents black trade unionists, is planning to have 40 people knocking on doors five days a week until Election Day.

"Voter registration is one-third of the battle," said Sonya Toler, executive director of the Governor's Advisory Commission on African American Affairs, noting that major voter education and mobilization efforts remain. "We still have two-thirds to go."