Election.getElection: Get district basic election data

In pvsR: An R package to interact with the Project Vote Smart API for scientific research

Description

This function is a wrapper for the Election.getElection() method of the PVS API Election class which grabs district basic election data according to the election ID. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all election IDs given as a function input, extracts the XML values from the returned XML file(s) and returns them arranged in one data frame.

Usage

Election.getElection(electionId)

Arguments

electionId

a character string or list of character strings with the election ID(s) (see references for details)

Value

A data frame with a row for each election and columns with the following variables describing the election:
elections.election*.electionId,
elections.election*.name,
elections.election*.stateId,
elections.election*.officeTypeId,
elections.election*.special,
elections.election*.electionYear.
For each stage the following variables are jointly (as one string) in a column:
elections.election*.stage*.stageId,
elections.election*.stage*.name,
elections.election*.stage*.stateId,
elections.election*.stage*.electionDate,
elections.election*.stage*.filingDeadline,
elections.election*.stage*.npatMailed.

Author(s)

Ulrich Matter <ulrich.matter-at-unibas.ch>

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Election.html
Use Election.getElectionByYearState() or Election.getElectionByZip() to get election ID(s).

Examples

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
## Not run: pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get data of a certain election
## Not run: election <- Election.getElection(as.list(2595:2607))
## Not run: election

Example output

pvsR documentation built on May 2, 2019, 5:16 a.m.