Officials.getByLastname: Get a list of officials according to a last name match
In umatter/pvsR: Interact with the Project Vote Smart API for Scientific Research

Description Usage Arguments Value Author(s) References Examples

This function is a wrapper for the Officials.getByLastname() method of the PVS API Officials class which grabs a list of officials according to a last name match. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all last names given as a function input, extracts the XML values from the returned XML file(s) and returns them arranged in one data frame.

1	Officials.getByLastname(lastName)

lastName

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

A data frame with a row for each official and columns with the following variables describing the official:
candidateList.candidate*.candidateId,
candidateList.candidate*.firstName,
candidateList.candidate*.nickName,
candidateList.candidate*.middleName,
candidateList.candidate*.lastName,
candidateList.candidate*.suffix,
candidateList.candidate*.title,
candidateList.candidate*.electionParties,
candidateList.candidate*.officeParties,
candidatelist.candidate*.officeStatus,
candidateList.candidate*.officeDistrictId,
candidateList.candidate*.officeDistrictName,
candidateList.candidate*.officeTypeId,
candidateList.candidate*.officeId,
candidateList.candidate*.officeName,
candidateList.candidate*.officeStateId.

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

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Officials.html
Use CandidateBio.getBio(), Candidates.getByOfficeState(), Candidates.getByOfficeTypeState(), Candidates.getByElection(), Candidates.getByDistrict(), Candidates.getByZip()
, Committee.getCommitteeMembers(), Election.getStageCandidates(), Leadership.getOfficials(), Local.getOfficials(), Officials.getStatewide(), Officials.getByOfficeState(), Officials.getByOfficeTypeState(), Officials.getByDistrict() or Officials.getByZip() to get last name(s).
See also: Matter U, Stutzer A (2015) pvsR: An Open Source Interface to Big Data on the American Political Sphere. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0130501. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130501

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as an option
# (options("pvs.key" = "yourkey")) or in the pvs.key variable:
## Not run: pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get a list of officials with the same last name
## Not run: miller <- Officials.getByLastname(list("Miller","Fine"))
## Not run: miller