Gary Singh is now the highest vote-getter in Manteca history.

Singh, 37, as of Wednesday at 9 p.m. had amassed 12,232 votes. That eclipses the high mark of 12,042 Ben Cantu set in 2018 when he defeated Steve DeBrum in the mayor’s race.

Singh secured a second term on the Manteca City Council in the Nov. 3 election while retired police chief Charlie Halford won the other council seat up for grabs. The 10,417 votes that have been tabulated in Halford’s favor so far puts him fourth on the all-time top vote-getter list. DeBrum is third with 10,988 votes in his unsuccessful bid for a third term as mayor.

While voter turnout was at a record level, gathering record vote levels in this year’s council race was a bit more challenging given there were five candidates seeking two seats. In the 2018 mayors’ race there was only Cantu and DeBrum.

 Even with a number of votes still to be counted, Measure Z — the City of Manteca’s one cent sales tax increase — appears to have been rejected. As of Wednesday it was trailing by 740 votes. It had been leading by 171 votes on Election Night.

The count now stands at 12,409 (51.54 percent) against and 11.669 (48.46 percent) in favor. The measure needs 50 percent plus one vote to pass.

Measure A — the Manteca Unified School District’s $260 million school bond — still has a fairly comfortable favorable margin.

Measure A as of Wednesday was passing with 21,066 (57.27 percent) in favor and 11,669 (42.73 percent) against.  Measure A requires 55 percent support to pass.

Countywide, there are still thousands of mail-in ballots that need to be verified for signatures and addresses before they can be counted. Given they are mail-in ballots from throughout San Joaquin County, there is no way of knowing how many of those left to be verified were cast within the City of Manteca and/or the Manteca Unified School District.

The next update on the count is tonight at 9 o’clock.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com