Though the San Francisco Department of Elections doesn't expect to have the final final count of all votes cast during the November 3 election until the end of today, one number doesn't lie: Mayor Ed Lee is less popular with voters than 2014's controversial (and, ultimately, abortive) proposal to tax sugary beverages.

According to John Arntz, the Director of the DoE, the Department still had "a few hundred cards" to count, but will "complete the tabulation" today. At the latest count, Mayor Ed Lee was hanging onto Room 200 with 105,263 votes cast, for a total of 55.33% of the vote.

In their coverage of a dispute over beverage company rights to sell their wares at San Francisco State (a wonky but interesting issue that's been ably covered by the Golden Gate Xpress for nearly a month), the Chron connects the present issue to Supervisors Scott Wiener and Eric Mar's 2014 proposal to enact a tax of 2-cents-per-ounce to cola and other sugar-fueled beverages.

The soda tax proposal "got 56 percent of the vote in the November 2014 election, but needed two-thirds to win," the Chron points out, saying that "123,475 San Francisco residents voted for the soda tax — nearly 20,000 more than voted for Mayor Ed Lee for re-election," giving the failed tax a slight edge over Lee with 55.59% of the vote.

It's only fair to note that when I looked at the stats for the 2014 election, I saw that the turnout in 2014 was also slightly higher than this year's, with 231,214 total ballots cast compared to this year's current total of 202,914. Plus, Prop E voters only had two choices, compared to mayoral voters' six options (plus write-ins). So maybe the Chron's parallel is less Pepsi Challenge than apples and oranges...but if I were the 1-2-3 folks, I'd be having a Coke and a smile at the comparison.