Voters went to the polls on Tuesday to elect the new Oswego County 20th District County Legislator.

Republican Tim Stahl beat out Democrat Laura Brazak, 409 votes to 259 votes, respectively. Stahl brought in 61.2 percent of the votes.

According to Stahl, this was the largest voter turnout in the last four general elections, with 160 more voters coming out to vote than in the 2013 election.

“I think it is because both candidates spent countless hours engaging our community over the last few months,” Stahl said. “It is great to see so many exercising their right to vote.”

Brazak was also surprised, yet pleased, by the voter turnout.

“Although it was still quite low, around 20 percent, I’m surprised that it was so high given that it was an off-year election,” Brazak said.

Despite the outcome of the election, Brazak, whose campaign focused on long-term strategic planning and smart, sustainable growth for Oswego, plans to stay involved in local politics.

“The county has been under Republican control for decades and we rank dead last on a matrix of different health and socio-economic indicators and we’ve got the highest unemployment rate in the state,” Brazak said. “I guess we start laying the groundwork for the next election now!”

Moving forward, Stahl is “excited to hit the ground running.” He plans on using these next two months before he officially takes office to attend legislative meetings and begin meeting one-on-one with as many of the other legislators as he can.

Stahl, a 20-year Oswego resident, wants to fulfill his campaign promises of lowering taxes, building better services and opportunities for residents and growing small businesses.

“The most important thing that we can do to lessen the blow on our local economy is to find ways to do more with less,” Stahl said. “The only way we can do that is to cut government red tape and find ways to help small businesses grow. We need to continue to encourage local development and pride in local communities.”

Stahl plans on using his degree in applied mathematical economics from Oswego State and his experience as the business development manager for R.M. Burritt Motors to help Oswego County in the wake of the FitzPatrick nuclear power plant closing.

“There is the potential for some difficult times ahead and I am hoping to be able to work with some of the new legislators as well as the current ones to help come up with new and creative ways to reduce the affect of the fallout from the plant closing,” Stahl said. “I truly believe our community can and will come out of it with an even stronger, stable and more diverse economy.”