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SAN FRANCISCO — Two ballot measures that would allow the seizure Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s transmission lines and plants and provide energy through a public power agency hinged on thousands of uncounted ballots. 

The ballots were being held Wednesday as a precaution, in case any were infected with anthrax. 

Voters chose between two competing public power measures one day after PG&E announced a 243 percent increase in profits for the past quarter. The company has spent more than $1 million fighting the measures and trying to protect its assets, which came under fire after the state’s power crisis led to high energy prices and customers suffered through rolling blackouts. 

With thousands of ballots, including 5,500 absentee ballots left uncounted Wednesday, Proposition F was leading 56,008 votes to 53,760 votes, a 51-49 percent margin. The competing proposal, Measure I, was losing by the same 49-51 percent margin, with 52,524 votes for and 53,865 against. 

Proposition F would allow an elected board to declare eminent domain and buy the necessary PG&E infrastructure to serve the city, as well as transform the city utilities commission into a department of water and power similar to that of Los Angeles. 

Measure I would create an independent municipal utility district representing San Francisco and Brisbane with an elected board, similar to Sacramento’s, that also could buy PG&E power plants and transmission lines. 

Both agencies would issue bonds to raise the millions they would need to buy PG&E property, pay workers and buy any electricity they can’t generate. 

The absentee ballots were taken Tuesday to an auditorium instead of City Hall for fear that any possible anthrax contamination could close down the building. 

Election officials stressed they had received no threats about anthrax, but were just being cautious. 

State officials including Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, and S. David Freeman, chairman of the state’s Power Authority and a top adviser to Gov. Gray Davis, support public power. 

“Where in California have the lights been on and the prices been stable? In Sacramento and L.A.,” Freeman said at a news conference on the steps of City Hall last Friday. 

PG&E, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and myriad business groups called the public power measures too costly and too risky. The bankrupt utility’s parent, PG&E Corp., contributed most of the $1.4 million spent to defeat public power to avoid ripple effects elsewhere in the utility’s territory.