Butler County will boast a record registered-voter total for the election showdown between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. That's exciting.

A check with the county Voter Registration Office Wednesday afternoon revealed that the registration total already was more than 4,000 voters higher than the 116,177 people on the voter rolls for the spring primaries, and that that total would increase.

Employees of the registration office still were entering new-registration data into the county's computer system and there was speculation that a final total might not be available until the coming week.

This county's fall voter-registration experience is consistent with what's happening on the statewide level, which will have at least 8.6 million people eligible to vote. That's also a record.

The previous record of 8.4 million was set in 2004.

Monday was the last day to register before the Nov. 4 general election, and also was the last day to change party enrollment or nonpartisan enrollment before the election.

But whatever the final enrollment numbers and how the registrations stack up for the Republican and Democratic parties — and for those who choose to be Independents — those numbers will lose their luster if there isn't a big voter turnout on Election Day.

The McCain-Obama contest is attracting the kind of interest that a presidential race should always command, but oftentimes doesn't.

It is to be hoped that the upbeat registration picture produces a record turnout.

The woman who is suing the North Allegheny School District because she was raped in a parking lot at the high school in April 2006 is placing blame where it doesn't belong.The sexual assault wouldn't have happened if she hadn't skipped class to smoke cigarettes with her attacker that day.She is to blame for putting herself in the unwanted situation, not the school district. She doesn't deserve a financial windfall stemming from the criminal incident.According to the lawsuit, her attacker was convicted of rape and other charges in juvenile court.Beyond that, the woman, now 19, doesn't deserve anything from anyone else — unless, maybe, a bit of remorse over her stupid conduct.In the federal lawsuit, the woman says officials at North Allegheny High School did not do enough to protect her. She said school officials failed, in part, because her attacker was believed to have assaulted two other females while attending schools in the same district.Regardless, the attack in question couldn't have occurred if the victim had been in class, where she was supposed to be at the time. Schools shouldn't be held liable when students intentionally break rules that, in part, are intended to ensure their safety.

No doubt some people were taken aback by the disclosure that the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association has not required background checks of sports officials. Most people would have thought such a requirement would have been part of the PIAA hiring process, if not a matter of periodic review after an individual was hired to officiate.After all, these officials are in contact with young people.But the real prospect of requiring background checks of all future sports official applicants didn't come about until Oct. 3, when the association's board of directors voted unanimously to give preliminary approval to such a plan.The board also decided to formulate a procedure for checking the 13,700 registered officials already employed by the association. The association staff was directed to report back on such a plan at the board's December meeting.The action was in response to a Pittsburgh newspaper's report last month that dozens of people who have officiated school sporting events in the Pittsburgh area since 2005 have criminal records. There probably are dozens — if not hundreds — more throughout the state.The newspaper also indicated that a self-reporting policy by the statewide association overseeing officials didn't seem to be working.With so many people with criminal records officiating school athletic contests, it's clear that self-reporting has failed.It's in the association's and school athletes' best interests that the failure to require background checks of sports officials be corrected.The association has been the object of General Assembly scrutiny in recent years, but this omission on the association's part apparently has escaped widespread public notice.Background checks for officials and prospective officials make sense. The association never should have felt fully at ease without them.