Student Association president-elect Phil Meisner left a crowd of cheering supporters to call his mother and father early Friday morning after learning he had won the presidential runoff.

But Meisner said it was hard to explain to his parents that this time, he had actually won.

“What’s been going on is difficult to explain with all of the recounts and miscounts,” Meisner said. “I think we’re going to run into this problem as well next year.”

The Joint Elections Committee declared Alexis Rice the president-elect in its original count earlier this month. But recounts found she was a few votes short of the 40 percent she needed to win outright, pitting her against Meisner in this week’s runoff election.

Rice said she agreed next year will be difficult because of the problems generated by the miscounts and the election in general.

“We thought we had a good chance of a second victory,” she said. “It’s a hard thing to be already declared winner, and then later be declared not.”