Mary Jane Caylor listens at the Aug. 31, 2018 canvassing of the Huntsville municipal election, in which she finished second in District 2. She will be in a runoff against Frances Akridge. (Paul Gattis/pgattis@al.com)

Frances Akridge, who came just eight votes shy of winning election to the Huntsville city council and now faces a runoff campaign, said Friday she is considering contesting the election.

Akridge spoke after the city council canvassed the results from Tuesday's municipal election. With the inclusion of provisional ballots that were counted Friday, Akridge finished with 49.9 percent of the vote.

Needing to get one vote more than 50 percent to win the seat, Akridge will face runner-up Mary Jane Caylor in the Oct. 9 runoff.

"I don't know yet," Akridge said when asked by AL.com if she was considering contesting the election.

Ken Benion, the city's clerk treasurer and top elections official, said candidates have until 2 p.m. Tuesday to seek a recount.

Meanwhile, Caylor is ready to mount a rejuvenated effort to win the District 2 seat to be vacated by retiring council president Mark Russell.

Caylor received 32.4 percent of the vote but hopes to get a boost from the support of the third candidate in the race, Keith Ward - who received 17.8 percent of the vote. Caylor campaign manager David Driscoll said Ward will be supporting Caylor in the runoff.

"Keith is going to be part of our team," Driscoll said. "His votes alone help tremendously. And we'll have other endorsements coming out before the election. Mary Jane's a fighter. She's not going to give up. She will work and work really hard."

Akridge won 14 of the 15 precincts in Tuesday's election in addition to the absentee ballots.

She finished with 2,419 votes, which breaks down to 49.8557295 percent of the vote. Had she pushed her vote total to 2,427, that would have given her 50.02 percent of the vote.

"I want to thank everybody who showed up," Akridge said. "I want to thank all the people who contacted me since Tuesday who have volunteered their time, their money and their talents. We're going to put them to good use and use our resources as efficiently and as effectively as possible - just like I would when I'm in city council."

Benion estimated the cost of the runoff election to be about $46,000 but said he expected the city to remain well below its $120,000 budget for the 2018 election cycle.

Akridge spoke of that expense when asked about any element of disappointment in finishing just short of an outright win.

"That's what's disappointing," she said.

Akridge said she has no intention of changing her campaign for the runoff.

"My message has resonated with a lot of people so we're not going to change a thing," she said. "One of the things that's given us strength that we've discovered is we've made personal contact with a lot of people and we acknowledge what their own personal priorities, including the five we've established (in her campaign), for quite a long time now."

As soon as Russell dropped the gavel and adjourned the meeting, Caylor left her seat in the back of the city council chambers - not pausing to speak to anyone.

"We're just going to work really hard," Driscoll said. "We have a plan in place and it's a matter of getting our voters out. We've been in this place before in other campaigns. It can be done."