pvsR (version 0.1.1)

Election.getElectionByYearState: Get district basic election data according to year and state ID

Description

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)

Arguments

stateId

(optional) a character string or list of character strings with the state ID(s) (default: NA) (see references for details)

year

a character string or list of character strings with the years

Value

• A data frame with a row for each election and columns with variables describing the election. The returned data frame contains 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.

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Election.html Use State.getStateIDs() to get a list of state IDs.

Examples

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get information about an election of a certain year and state
election <- Election.getElectionByYearState(list("NY","FL"),2012)
election