Tuscaloosa City Council certifies March 4 municipal election, orders District 1 runoff for April 1

The Tuscaloosa City Council canvassed and certified results of the municipal election held March 4, 2025, and adopted an ordinance calling a runoff election for the District 1 city council seat on April 1, 2025.

Clerk read the reported vote totals and a substitute resolution that added provisional ballots to the unofficial totals before the council voted to adopt the results. The clerk said, “All right. So at this time I will canvas the results of the municipal election held on 03/04/2025 except those votes cast on provisional ballots. Copies of the unofficial reports have been provided if you'd like to follow along.” The clerk later summarized provisional ballots: “We submitted 5 provisional ballots and 2, 3, 3 are being accepted,” and listed the provisional recipients by contest in the transcript.

Why it matters: certifying the canvass and adding accepted provisional ballots finalizes official totals for the mayoral, council and school-board contests and, where no candidate received a required majority in District 1, triggers the runoff the council ordered.

The transcript record includes the clerk’s readout of precinct and absentee totals as recorded in the council packet. Examples from that readout include: Denson Ferrell (various district tallies noted as read in the packet), Walt Maddox (reported in the transcript as “8 60 1”), Q. Chandler (“3 20 1”), Joe Eatman (“3 30 3”), Matthew Wilson (“4 0 2”), Tony Humphreys (“1 60 9”), and Karen Thompson Jackson (“8 51”). The clerk also read precinct-level tallies for districts 2 through 7 and absentee counts located at City Hall, as recorded in the meeting transcript.

On provisional ballots, the clerk provided a contest-level list in the transcript saying the accepted provisional ballots included votes for Denson Ferrell, Matthew Wilson, Karen Thompson Jackson, Walt Maddox and Joe Eatman across multiple precincts, and a final provisional for District 6 listing Walt Maddox and John Fale. The council recessed briefly while staff completed a substitute resolution that incorporated the provisional ballots into the totals; after the recess the council considered and adopted that substitute resolution.

The council then approved an ordinance to order a second (runoff) election for the District 1 seat to be held April 1, 2025. During roll calls the transcript records affirmative votes (several “Yes” responses) and the chairdeclared the runoff established. The clerk later certified and declared the municipal election results as adopted by the council.

Actions recorded in the meeting were procedural and ministerial: canvassing and declaring the election results, accepting and incorporating specified provisional ballots into the totals through a substitute resolution, and adopting an ordinance to call a runoff election for District 1. The transcript records motions and seconds for those steps and multiple affirmative votes by council members on each motion.