Undergraduates were pitted against graduate students in deciding Stanford’s next ASSU Executive — and the undergrads won.

In the moments before the final result was announced, Fagan Harris ‘09 bit his lips and gazed up at the ceiling, too nervous to watch Elections Commissioner Ryan Woessner ‘10 name the winning slate.

But Harris and his running mate, Jonny Dorsey ‘09, had nothing to worry about.

In the fifth round of instant runoff voting, Dorsey-Harris won the election with 2,150 votes to Gobaud-Goldgof’s 1,880, a gap of 270 votes. Dorsey-Harris won 2,603 votes in the sixth and final round.

Dorsey and Harris embraced when Woessner announced that they won the executive election, and were soon drowned out by the screams of supporters gathered in the Axe and Palm.

The new executives had a lot more hugging in store for the night, when they planned to celebrate with the 150 students who helped them campaign.

“We’re just going to hug all our supporters,” Harris said.

But Dorsey and Harris did not devote their post-victory time to supporters only. Seconds after their win was announced, the pair jumped to members of the competing slates and exchanged hugs and handshakes.

“The other guys are all awesome,” Dorsey told The Daily as his running mate and Jack Cackler ‘09, who ran on the Sharma-Cackler executive slate, discussed a future for Cackler in the ASSU. “A very big priority is going to be keeping the energy up.”

Dorsey and Harris, who will begin their tenure as executives with a sharply divided student body, will need to work with their one-time campaign foes to unite the campus.

The new executives won 903 fewer graduate first choice votes than David Gobaud ‘08 and Greg Goldgof ‘08, and just barely beat out fourth place finishers Sharma-Cackler amongst graduates.

“We need to make sure our grad student networks are as strong as in the undergrad body,” Dorsey said. “It goes to working with all these great slates. We are figuring out ways to work with the other candidates to engage the whole campus.”

Turnout for this year’s elections rose 3 percent to 6,026. This was the result of a 19 percent increase in graduate voters, who numbered 2,675. Undergraduate turnout actually fell 7.4 percent to 3,351.

“For grads this is the first year we had a [graduate] assistant elections commissioner,” Woessner said. “That’s why you see a small decrease in undergrad votes, because we put more attention in how we were going to outreach to grads.”

While Dorsey and Harris gear up to begin work as Stanford’s president and vice president, the other slates are left to ponder their future in student politics.

“We don’t know,” Goboaud said when asked if he and his running mate Goldgof would work with the ASSU next year. “I’m not sure; we’ll do something.”

Priyanka Sharma ‘09, this year’s Undergraduate Senate Chair, grappled with the thought of leaving student government behind.

“I’ll think about it, I obviously need to see what’s available,” Sharma said of remaining involved with the ASSU. “It has been my life, and I do want it to stay there.”

For Dorsey and Harris, a week of sleepless nights and hard-fought campaigning has finally come to a close.

“What are you guys doing tonight?” Cackler asked the pair following their victory.

“Sleeping,” Dorsey replied.

But not for long.

“When are we starting work?” Dorsey asked The Daily with a grin. “Tomorrow.”