The $260 million Manteca Unified school bond continued to hold onto more than 55 percent of the vote needed for passage while the no votes for City of Manteca’s one cent sales tax has grown.

The San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters was only able to verify 5,730 ballots on Thursday before the last count update. That leaves 124,191 ballots left to be counted.

The elections office has counted 149,491 ballots as of Thursday at 9 p.m. The ballots counted on Election Night were cast in-person or were among those mailed-in or dropped off at various locations in advance of Tuesday.

The process requires verification of all ballots that were mailed-in or dropped off. That includes verifying signatures and addresses before they can be counted. It is a fairly laborious process.

Also state law prohibits any ballot being counted before the polls close.

Since the remaining mail-in ballots are countywide there is no way to know how many ballots left to be counted involve the city tax measure or the school bond.

It could be weeks before a final count is completed.

Measure Z as of Thursday at 9 p.m. was trailing by 332 votes. It was down by 208 votes on Wednesday. The tax proposal had been leading by 171 votes on Election Night.

The count now stands at 9,094 (50.93 percent) against and 8,762 (49.07 percent) in favor. The measure needs 50 percent plus one vote to pass.

The next update of the count will be made tonight at 9 o’clock.

The ballots left to count could also change the numbers tallied to date for the $260 million Manteca Unified School bond. Measure A as of Thursday at 9 p.m. was passing with 15,493 (57.24 percent) in favor and 11,572 (42.6 percent) against. 

Measure A requires 55 percent support to pass.

In the Manteca City Council race on Wednesday, incumbent Gary Singh was leading the five candidates seeking two council seats with 9,184 votes or 31.65 percent of those that had been counted.

Retired Manteca Police Chief Charlie Halford was in second with 7,621 votes (26.27%) followed by 12-year incumbent Debby Moorhead with 4,872 votes (16.79%). Registered nurse Fred Cunha was fourth with 4,317 votes (14.88%). David Martin had 2,962 votes (10.21%).

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com