A referendum that would have raised sales tax in Champaign County by one percent is still too close to call, as a slim margin remains after 1,000 votes were recounted by hand.

After all official votes were counted early Wednesday morning, the ballot question was denied by four-tenths of a percent, a margin of 300 votes. Provisional ballots have yet to be counted.

Champaign County Clerk Shelden said the 1,000 ballots from the Cunningham 1 precinct had to be recounted by hand because of mistakes made by the election judges.

According to a blog post by Mark Shelden, on Nov. 18 the county will count the provisional ballots as well as any absentee ballots that were postmarked on or before Nov. 3.

There were 319 provisional ballots cast as well as 576 absentee ballots sent to voters that have not yet been returned. This could potentially mean that there are another 895 votes left to count, said Shelden’s blog post.

Shelden said the judges at the voting precinct incorrectly put the ballots into boxes and instructed voters to mark the ballot in an incorrect way.

School districts in the county worked together to have the referendum placed on the ballot.

The tax would have provided school districts with $1 million in revenue, Urbana School Board president Mark Netter said in early October.

Eric Heisig, Alissa Groeninger, Melissa Silverberg and Patrick Wade contributed to this report