Daniel Sakow, Senior Staff Photographer

Dressed in a suit and tie, and with a look of disbelief on his face, finance junior Matt Keipper had only one word to describe the way he was feeling Thursday night.

“Wow.”

And aside from “I’m going to Disneyland,” that was just about all Keipper could say after learning that 3,231 students voted in this year’s Associated Students election and 1,386 of them voted for him, making him next year’s A.S. president.

“It was just 152 votes between Andrew (Roy) and I,” Keipper said. “Just to think that the race was that close – that there were that many votes cast and that it was so close – it easily could have gone either way, and I’m very excited that it did go in my favor.”

Keipper beat out two other candidates to win the race – fellow Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity member Andrew Roy and newcomer Daniel Goldberg, who was disqualified shortly before election results were announced for violating various campaigning rules .

Keipper said that beating out his fraternity brother was “bittersweet.”

“It was obviously something that we both wanted to do very much – we’re both very passionate about it,” he said. “I would say during the race we almost had to – I mean during the race, we were obviously running against each other, so we both kept it very clean.

“We obviously didn’t hang out that much but – it was very difficult- very difficult. I can only hope that things will go back to normal, and I think that with time they will.”

But friction between fraternity brothers was not the only thing creating apprehension Thursday night.

Four other candidates who had crossed their fingers for the past two weeks gained new titles: Vice President of External Affairs Khouloud Elmasri, Vice President of University Affairs John Ly, Vice President of Finance Tyler Morgan and Executive Vice President Brian Hamilton.

And along with those titles, the newly elected council will have the responsibility of running a student government that next year will oversee an $18 million budget, the preliminary phase of a $44 million redevelopment project and the opening of the new Aztec Aquaplex.

Morgan, who beat out vice president of finance candidate Lauren Burns by just 17 votes, will be charged with managing the hearty budget.

He said that he is “thrilled” about the victory and was relatively pleased with the 10.7 percent voter turnout.

“Its nice to know that students are actually caring about the executive positions in Associated Students,” Morgan said. “I think it’s because Associated Students was really able to go and put themselves out there this year.”

Morgan said that his working relationship with Keipper will help to facilitate a smooth transition to next year’s executive team. Morgan currently sits as vice chair of the finance board, which Keipper heads.

“I definitely learned a lot under Matt this year,” Morgan said. “I’m excited to work with him again.”

The executive team will officially be in place after the A.S. council certifies election results on Wednesday.