n LOUDOUN
VOL. 9, NO. 1
4 | n LEESBURG
8 | n EDUCATION
10 | n OBITUARIES
23| n LEGAL NOTICES
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NOVEMBER 16, 2023
Certified Vote Count Confirms Anderson’s CA Win BY NORMAN K. STYER AND ALEXIS GUSTIN nstyer@loudounnow.com agustin@loudounnow.com
Loudoun County election officers completed two days of the final canvassing of votes cast in the Nov. 7 elections Tuesday afternoon, with the certified talBob Anderson ly confirming a narrow win 50% | 68,068 for Republican Bob Anderson in the commonwealth attorney’s race. At the close of election night, Anderson held about a 1,000-vote lead over incumbent Democrat Buta Biberaj. As additional mail-in and provisional ballots were counted, that gap narrowed to just 357 votes Monday night and 300 in the final count. In the certified results, Anderson received 68,068 votes and Biberaj received 67,768 votes. On election night and again Monday, Biberaj declined to concede the race while awaiting the complete vote count. As of Tuesday night, she had not announced whether she would seek a recount of the ballots. Under state law, a recount request is permitted because the margin of victory was less than 1 percent. It requires a petition be made to the Circuit Court within 10 days of the Nov. 14 election certification. Because the margin is less than 0.5 percent, the recount would be publicly funded. The last recount in a Loudoun County election occurred in 2013. That was a House of Delegates race in which incumbent Tom Rust held on to his seat against a challenge by Jennifer Boysko. In the certified results, Rust led by 54 votes. After the recount he won by 32 votes. While Anderson’s win gives Republicans control
of all five Loudoun County constitutional offices, the result was surprising given the great disparity in size of the two campaigns. Biberaj spent $1.11 million in her bid for a second four-year term and Anderson spent just $70,000, according to campaign finance disclosure reports. Biberaj’s Buta Biberaj 50% | 67,768 investment resulted in an expenditure of $16.38 per vote, while Anderson spend $1.03 per vote. As the certification vote count entered its second day, Outreach Coordinator for the Office of Elections and Voter registration Samantha Shepherd said officials on Tuesday were hand counting 186 ballots in addition to reviewing 132 provisional ballots that were missing a check mark verifying that the voter showed the required identification. Shepherd said they used a new envelope for provisional ballots this year, which meant voters who registered on Election Day filled out their registration on the same envelope that contained their ballot. “Rather than having paperwork stapled into a form, the envelope is actually the form,” she said adding that it meant some boxes were left unchecked. She said the provisional board decided to count the 132 ballots after having a discussion on it yesterday. “Part of the reason why this has been so unexpectedly drawn out is because the ballot we had this year was 17 inches with a lot of different candidates on there and we report results by precinct, we report results by certain ballot style for towns, and so there was a lot to tabulate,” she said. n
Hanna Pampaloni/Loudoun Now
Nearly 200 Israeli Jews attend a dinner hosted by the Chabad of Loudoun County during a brief trip from Israel to New York and then Washington, DC Nov. 14.
‘Not a Distant Story’ Families of Jewish Hostages Visit Leesburg
BY HANNA PAMPALONI
hpampaloni@loudounnow.com
Nearly 200 Israeli Jews were hosted by the Chabad of Loudoun County on Tuesday during a brief trip from Israel to New York and then Washington, DC, before stopping off in Leesburg for dinner. Each of the Israeli visitors has close family members who are being held captive by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas following the series of coordinated attacks and kidnappings on Oct. 7. The trip was hosted and organized by the Chabad of Israel so the families could travel to New York to pray for their family members at the site of the Lubavitcher Grand Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s grave. Schneerson was a HOSTAGE FAMILIES continues on page 37
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