Mayor Mike Oakley Files Election Challenge In Circuit Court

September 9, 2025 - Mayor Mike Oakley, the mayor of Centreville at present, has filed an election challenge in the circuit court of Bibb County, Alabama. When the original election results were tabulated on the city's election day, Tuesday, August 26th, 2025, both Mayor Oakley and his opponent, Barry Cooner, ended up in an exact tie. With 326 votes being attributed to each one of them. That left both the citizens of Centreville and the mayoral candidates salivating for a full week before the provisional ballots were counted to determine who would be the new mayor come November.

Once the provisional ballots were tabulated on September 02nd, 2025, only four of the eight ballots that were reviewed were deemed eligible to be counted. With three of them being counted for Cooner and one of them being counted for Mayor Oakley. Making Barry Cooner the mayor-elect of Centreville with 329 votes total compared to Mayor Oakley's 327 votes. Now, however, Mayor Oakley has filed an action contesting the results of the election. With the claim that "ballots not due to be counted were included in the declared results, and , as a result of including these illegal votes" Mayor Oakley was not named the winner of the Mayoral Election for Centreville, Alabama.

Specifically, Mayor Oakley alleges in his action that there was "malconduct" on the part of the persons involved in the election process and as a result of the misconduct, "three or more votes were counted in favor of Cooner and/or three or more votes were not counted in favor of Oakley that would have resulted in Oakley having a sufficient number of lawful votes to be declared the winner of the election and Mayor of Centreville, Alabama." And in his demand for judgement from the court, Mayor Oakley is asking the court to declare him the winner of the August 28, 2025 election.

Mayor Mike Oakley is represented in this matter by Attorney Joel R. Blankenship of the Bachus, Brom, and Taylor, LLC law firm in Birmingham, Alabama. And in an ironic twist of fate, since his opponent's wife is the Circuit Clerk of Bibb County, Kayla Cooner's signature is on the official civil summons for Barry Cooner to be served with Mayor Oakley's action challenging the election results.