Four Votes Determine Centreville's New Mayor

CENTREVILLE, AL. - On Tuesday, August 26th, 2025, several cities throughout Alabama held their elections for mayor and other city positions. With various candidates celebrating their victories during their watch parties later that same day. However, in Centreville, the county seat of Bibb County, neither candidate for mayor could lay claim to the sweets of victory. For both the incumbent, Mayor Mike Oakley, and his challenger, Barry Cooner, ended up in a tie. As they both garnered 326 of the votes each in a city with a population of around 2,800.

With the votes ending up in a tie, the election for mayor of Centreville became dependent upon the provisional ballots. Making the populace of Centreville wait until Tuesday, September 02nd, 2025 to find out who the new mayor of Centreville would be. As the results of the provisional ballot count would not be made available until the city council met to certify the election results on September 02nd. The results did come in around noon on September 02nd, 2025. And the announcement was made that ten provisional ballots were submitted on election day. Four of which were deemed eligible to be counted. Of those four, two of them were unsealed which raised some questions, but among those four, three ballots were cast for Barry Cooner, and one ballot was cast for Mike Oakley.

"You always hear about the one vote making the difference and in this case it really did," said Mayor-elect Cooner. "We were two votes apart so it really makes the difference for everyone to go out and vote."

Thus, in what locals describe as an election filled with tons of misinformation, rumors that turned out not to be true, and mudslinging, Barry Cooner was determined to be the mayor-elect of Centreville. With Cooner garnering a total of 329 votes after the provisional ballots were included in the final count and Mayor Mike Oakley garnering 327 votes in the final count.

Given how close the final tally was, Mayor Mike Oakley has announced through his attorney, Joel Blankenship, that he will call for a recount. With the recount results expected to be available later this week.

Luisa Reyes is a Tuscaloosa Attorney, piano instructor, and vocalist.