The fate of a bill to raise the general excise tax for Honolulu mass transit grew more uncertain yesterday after a typo was discovered in a veto message sent by Gov. Linda Lingle.

Just as Lingle was telling legislators that they must amend the tax bill to allow the counties to handle all tax collection, lawmakers discovered her veto notifications were flawed with wrong bill numbers, meaning that the tax bill may become law anyway.

Monday was the deadline for Lingle to send the Legislature formal notification of the bills she intends to veto.

But the typos in five veto messages raise the question that the veto notifications are invalid and the five bills, including the transit tax increase, will become law.