ERocky Thompson ric Dyer answered his phone shortly after 6 p.m. and sat with a blank stare for a few moments before throwing his hand up and shouting.

The group around him joined in and hoisted him on their shoulders.

“We’re going to bring common sense back to the University,” Dyer said. “That’s what we ran on, common-sense ideas.”

Dyer-Nelson won the Minnesota Student Association presidential election yesterday with 1,036 votes, or 31 percent of the total vote.

A group of friends, to whom Dyer and Nelson give much of the credit for the win, gathered at Perry’s Pizza just off campus and stared at Dyer’s cell phone after the clock ticked past 6 p.m. when the polls closed.

The group of approximately 30 people wore neon green shirts with the slogan “Students in Dyer Need of Change” and draped themselves with green leis.

Dyer said their top priorities include getting a late-night bus on campus and working toward a new Gophers stadium.

Gina Nelson said she thought word of mouth went really far.

“I just never expected to be VP of MSA,” Nelson said.

Before candidate Micah Johnson got a phone call with the election results, he sat on his couch playing guitar.

And after he found out that he and his running mate Eric Hung came in second, he continued playing guitar. Johnson-Hung received 806 votes, 24 percent of the total cast.

But Micah Johnson said he was happy Dyer won.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “I wish him all the best.”

Ryan Johnson said he was happy the Dyer-Nelson team won. Johnson-Behrendt came in third with 661 votes, 20 percent of total votes.

“Eric and I share a lot of the same objectives, like the late-night bus,” Ryan Johnson said. “I’m sure he’ll continue to work on that in the future.”

At Big 10, Andy Pomroy said he was disappointed with coming in fourth place. Pomroy-Davidson received 602 votes, 18 percent of the total student vote.

“I thought the issues we focused on were ones that more students were concerned about,” he said.

Pomroy added that he was not happy with some of the Dyer-Nelson campaign.

“It was a little bit more negative than we’d like,” he said.

Presidential candidate Marty Andrade, who received 182 votes running on a platform to abolish MSA, said he thought the campaign was fun.

“Honestly, I don’t want to be their … president,” Andrade said.

Andrade said he didn’t mind Dyer.

“I mean he’ll be Ö it’ll be interesting. The thing is, it’ll be the status quo; the problem with status quo is that MSA will still be the same worthless organization,” he said.

Twelve percent of the undergraduate student body voted in the elections, the highest voter turnout in six years, according to Casey Buboltz, chairman of the All-Campus Elections Commission.

“I’m very, very happy with how we did,” Buboltz said.

A referendum on the ballot opposing war in Iraq failed, with 1,857 students voting against it, which amounted to 54 percent of the total vote.

Emily Ayshford welcomes comments at [email protected]