R/Election.getElectionByYearState.R

In umatter/pvsR: Interact with the Project Vote Smart API for Scientific Research

##' Get district basic election data according to year and state ID
##' 
##' This function is a wrapper for the Election.getElectionByYearState() method of the PVS API Election class which grabs district basic election data. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all state IDs and years 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.getElectionByYearState(stateId="NA", year)
##' @param stateId (optional) a character string or list of character strings with the state ID(s) (default: "NA", for national) (see references for details)
##' @param year a character string or list of character strings with the years (defaults to current year)
##' @return A data frame with a row for each election and columns with the following variables describing the election:\cr elections.election*.electionId,\cr elections.election*.name,\cr elections.election*.stateId,\cr elections.election*.officeTypeId,\cr elections.election*.special,\cr elections.election*.electionYear.\cr For each stage the following variables are jointly (as one string) in a column:\cr elections.election*.stage*.stageId,\cr elections.election*.stage*.name,\cr elections.election*.stage*.stateId,\cr elections.election*.stage*.electionDate,\cr elections.election*.stage*.filingDeadline,\cr elections.election*.stage*.npatMailed.
##' @references http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Election.html\cr
##' Use State.getStateIDs() to get a list of state IDs.\cr
##' 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
##' @author Ulrich Matter <ulrich.matter-at-unibas.ch>
##' @examples
##' # First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as an option
##' # (options("pvs.key" = "yourkey")) or in the pvs.key variable:
##' \dontrun{pvs.key <- "yourkey"}
##' # get information about an election of a certain year and state 
##' \dontrun{election <- Election.getElectionByYearState(list("NY","FL"),2012)}
##' \dontrun{election}
##' @export




Election.getElectionByYearState <-
	function (stateId="NA", year=NULL) {

		if (is.null(year)) year <- substr(Sys.Date(), 1,4)
		
		# internal function
		Election.getElectionByYearState.basic <- 
			function (.stateId, .year) {
				
				request <-  "Election.getElectionByYearState?"
				inputs  <-  paste("&stateId=",.stateId,"&year=",.year,sep="")
				output  <-  pvsRequest9.1(request,inputs)
				output$stateId <- .stateId
				output$year <- .year
				
				return(output)
		}

		# Main function  
		output.list <- lapply(stateId, FUN= function (y) {
			lapply(year, FUN= function (s) {
				Election.getElectionByYearState.basic(.stateId=y, .year=s)
			}
			)
		}
		)
		
		output.list <- redlist(output.list)
		output <- bind_rows(output.list)


		return(output)
	}