Measure Q — the proposed 20-year  three-quarter of a cent sales tax for the City of Manteca — was leading by 541 votes as of Monday at 5 p.m.

The latest tally of 13,541 yes votes to 12,992 no votes increased the measure’s margin from Friday when it was at 380 votes.

It requires 50 percent plus one of all votes cast to pass.

If it does, the temporary sales tax would go into effect Jan. 1.

The latest count reflects 54.3 percent of all 378,657 voters countywide who were eligible to vote, did so, and have had their ballots certified and counted.

There are still outstanding ballots to be counted that need to have signatures verified before they can be tallied.

Overall, there are  just under 173,000 other voters who could have voted.

There clearly aren’t that many ballots remaining as that would reflect a 100 percent turnout.

It is more likely the final turnout would be somewhere around 70 percent.

If that is in the ballpark, there would be around 60,000 ballots left to be processed.

Until the verification and count process is completed, there is no way of knowing what the final turnout will be.

Also, the remaining ballots are from throughout the county.

In the race for the Area One Manteca City Ciouncil seat, Regina Lackey has slightly increased her percentage of votes with 2,814 to her nearest competition, Judy Blumhorst at 2,516.

That is a 298 vote margin.

As of Sunday, Republicans were holding out hope the District 9 Congressional vote would break in their favor.

But Monday’s count has increased incumbent Josh Harder’s percentage to 53.24 percent against 47.76 percent for his Republican challenger, current Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln,

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com