openelections
IL special election data alternatives
@tothebeat is working on Illinois datasource.py. we're hoping there is a better data source for special elections than the portal link provided in the data admin.
For example, 2013-02-26 special primary house has a portal link that you must drill down through. It leads to a direct link that has an HTML page of results. These are the we're hoping to avoid scraping.
Let's touch base with volunteer metadata gathers for IL and/or state agency to see if there are alternatives.
I think @dwillis was trying to point towards the "View Vote Totals By County" link at the bottom of the HTML page of results that @zstumgoren linked:
The "View Vote Totals By County" link is actually a JavaScript call:
javascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$lnkVoteTotalsByCounty','')
When you click on this, the URL in the address bar doesn't change. This probably explains Derek's link in his comment above that's the same as Serdar's originally quoted link.
Picking this up.
I hit up the volunteer metadata gatherer to see if she had checked into the availability of structured data for the IL special elections.
Also a little bit more on the hell that is ASP.NET postback:
- http://www.evagoras.com/2011/02/10/how-postback-works-in-asp-net/
- https://blog.scraperwiki.com/2011/11/how-to-get-along-with-an-asp-webpage/
Hey folks. I've contacted the Illinois State Board of Elections (via phone- left message and email) today, and will post another update when I hear back/badger them again.
