Local candidates met at Palio Ristorante Italiano in Leesburg Tuesday night where they awaited election results amongst friends and family. Among them was Supervisor candidate Kelly Burk who said she felt very positive about her day.

“I always think it’s important that people to come out. That’s what’s makes our democracy what it is,” Burk said. “Of course I wanted them to vote for me but however they voted has most certainly made me very proud that we as a country continue to be able to do that and I wish more people would participate.”

Burk said that no matter what the final numbers show she will continue to be very involved in the community.

“I would be sad and disappointed if I lost but there’s lots of opportunities to continue in the community,” she said.

School Board candidate Tom Marshall said he wasn’t surprised that one of his opponents was in lead as of 9 p.m. but that he was interested to see what might happen in the Leesburg District.  

When asked what his plans would be if he lost, Marshall said “I don’t know what my future plans would be other than to finish up my term as a school board member and do a good job on the boundaries that effect Leesburg with the opening of the new school in 2012. After that I’ll just spend more time doing real estate I guess.”

Town Councilman Marty Martinez was also in the crowd on Tuesday and said he was eager to see the results as to whether or not the Mayor and Town Council elections would be moved to the month of November.

“One of the questions that was asked at the VML conference was will we get more voters in the November election and the answer is of course we will. The question is what would be the quality of the voter for local issues,” Martinez said.

“We criticize a low voter turnout in the local elections but I will tell you that if there is an issue that affects the Town of Leesburg that’s sensitive and people are discussing it, we will have voter turnout," he said. "My feeling is in the local elections the people who really work in the community and understand the issues are the ones going out to vote. But we need to make sure that we keep the local elections non-partisan.”

When asked how he would feel if the elections were moved to November Martinez said he would just have to deal with it like everyone else.

“I’m not going to whine like some people will do. We’ll just have to deal with it,” Martinez said.

The unfortunate part, he said, is local candidates will have to raise more money, campaigns will increase from two to three months to six to eight and candidates wil lhave to compete with every federal election there is.

"It’s going to be harder and harder for us to get our points across," Martinez said. "What ends up happening is we’re going to get some people elected to Town Council based on party affiliation not based on character and what they’ve done for the town.”