Elections Data Spec Version 2

Introduction

The following spec describes the elections in a state during a particular year. Inside a particular year's directory within a state there is a file called "elections" listing the elections that occurred in that year and information about the status and scope of results data.

JSON example

CSV example

Fields

Field	Type	Description
id	string	OpenElections identifier (example: md-2012-11-06-general)
year	integer	year of the election
start_date	date	beginning date of the election (yyyy-mm-dd)
end_date	date	ending date of the election (usually the same as start_date)
division	string	political jurisdiction using Open Civic Data Division Identifiers
result_type	string	the type of result available (certified, unofficial or null)
election_type	string	one of primary, general, primary runoff, general runoff, primary recall or general recall
special	boolean	indicates whether the election is a special election
offices	array	represents the titles of offices contested (not specific districts)
reporting_levels	array of hashes	each reporting level has a boolean indicating if results available
absentee_and_provisional	boolean	indicates whether early voting, absentee and provisional tallies are available
notes	string	notes about the election
source_url	string	url of data source
updated_at	datetime	a timestamp indicating when the given election was last updated

Questions

Join us on the Google Group to discuss these specs, or you can file an issue on this Github repository, too.

1. How should the reporting_levels and vote_types be represented in CSV?
2. Should reporting_levels be an array rather than an array of hashes?
3. Should vote_types be an array rather than an array of hashes?