Huntsville’s razor close mayoral contest was even closer than first thought.
Final vote totals credited challenger Tommy Battle with four more votes when provisional ballots were counted today. Three term Mayor Loretta Spencer added one vote.

The city’s canvassing board reviewed precinct-by-precinct totals in the race for mayor, city council and city school board. Spencer garnered 14,872 votes (49.52 percent) to Battle’s 14,490 votes (48.24 percent.) A runoff is slated Oct. 7 since neither candidate drew more than 50 percent of the vote. Perennial mayoral hopeful Jackie Reed finished with 531 votes and Michael Polemeni, 144 votes.

The only contest decided outright in the August 26 municipal election was for District 1 city council. Richard Showers won his sixth consecutive term, outpolling Reggie McKenzie 2,359 votes to 1,347 votes. Ralph Timberlake ended with 188 votes.

Runoffs are also scheduled in the following races:

District 1 city school board between Pat King (1,294 votes) and Laurie Bone McCaulley (1,826 votes.)
District 5 city council: Will Culver (941 votes) and Richard Gipson (1,016 votes.
District 5 city school board: Susan Currie (1,417 votes) and Alta Morrison, (1,621 votes).