elections canada
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does anyone know anything about mass extraction of data from the
elections canada site? http://www.elections.ca/ hugh. |
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Hi Hugh,
What information are you hoping to get, and in what format? On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: > does anyone know anything about mass extraction of data from the > elections canada site? > http://www.elections.ca/ > > hugh. > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca > -- Change the world one loan at a time - visit Kiva.org to find out how |
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All of it, in accessible format. ;)
I don't know enough about data formats, or what data might be useful, but let me tell you what I would like to do. I would like to extract data from elections canada, data useful to the average citizen trying to decide who to vote for, and present them in a new, more accessible way (starting with a wiki as an easy way to get lots of people to help put data/content into place ... but maybe migrating to something else). In addition to elections canada info, I would like to collect for each MP & candidate, (websites, policy platforms, contact info), and RSS feeds from howdtheyvote, googlenews, technorati, and possibly other things. here is the starting point: http://visiblepolitics.ca What info from elections.ca (to start): - List of all ridings & who is the MP (relatively easy) - List of postal codes for each riding - Campaign finance data - currently only available as single webforms (I think) What format: - a format that is easy to translate into wiki markup cheers! On Feb 2, 2007, at 11:24 AM, Daniel Haran wrote: > Hi Hugh, > > What information are you hoping to get, and in what format? > > On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: >> does anyone know anything about mass extraction of data from the >> elections canada site? >> http://www.elections.ca/ >> >> hugh. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- >> discuss_civicaccess.ca >> > > > -- > Change the world one loan at a time - visit Kiva.org to find out how > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > discuss_civicaccess.ca |
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Hugh,
At least all the financing data are available through tab-delimited file which is better than nothing to export them to a database for exemple. You can have : - Finance for each fed party on a quarterly base - Finance for each riding/election - You can have the name & zip code of each contributor (when you do a search with there engine, you always have on to of the screen a link for a file. If you do your seach with no search parameter, you can retrieve all the data) It's there : http://www.elections.ca/scripts/webpep/fin/welcome.aspx?lang=e For the other elements, I don't know. A mapping zipcode/riding would be very useful for example On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: All of it, in accessible format. ;) |
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> At least all the financing data are available through tab-delimited
right, but it seems like this info is available only page by page (ie
> file which is better than nothing to export them to a database for > exemple. > You can have : > - Finance for each fed party on a quarterly base > - Finance for each riding/election > - You can have the name & zip code of each contributor > > (when you do a search with there engine, you always have on to of > the screen a link for a file. If you do your seach with no search > parameter, you can retrieve all the data) for each candidate, for each riding, for each party). I'd like a file with all that info in one place - instead of having 307 seats x 4 candidates = 1228 individual files + parties. > > For the other elements, I don't know. A mapping zipcode/riding > would be very useful for example elections canada provides this search tool: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/FindED.aspx?L=e so the data is there... can we get it out tho? > h. > On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: All of it, > in accessible format. ;) > > I don't know enough about data formats, or what data might be useful, > but let me tell you what I would like to do. > > I would like to extract data from elections canada, data useful to > the average citizen trying to decide who to vote for, and present > them in a new, more accessible way (starting with a wiki as an easy > way to get lots of people to help put data/content into place ... but > maybe migrating to something else). In addition to elections canada > info, I would like to collect for each MP & candidate, (websites, > policy platforms, contact info), and RSS feeds from howdtheyvote, > googlenews, technorati, and possibly other things. here is the > starting point: http://visiblepolitics.ca > > What info from elections.ca (to start): > - List of all ridings & who is the MP (relatively easy) > - List of postal codes for each riding > - Campaign finance data - currently only available as single webforms > (I think) > > What format: > - a format that is easy to translate into wiki markup > > cheers! > > > On Feb 2, 2007, at 11:24 AM, Daniel Haran wrote: > > > Hi Hugh, > > > > What information are you hoping to get, and in what format? > > > > On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> does anyone know anything about mass extraction of data from the > >> elections canada site? > >> http://www.elections.ca/ > >> > >> hugh. > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > >> [hidden email] > >> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > >> discuss_civicaccess.ca > >> > > > > > > -- > > Change the world one loan at a time - visit Kiva.org to find out how > > > > _______________________________________________ > > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > > discuss_civicaccess.ca > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > discuss_civicaccess.ca > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > discuss_civicaccess.ca |
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On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > For the other elements, I don't know. A mapping zipcode/riding > > would be very useful for example > elections canada provides this search tool: > http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/FindED.aspx?L=e > > so the data is there... can we get it out tho? > > > > h. Well, I first checked the copyright, which seems OK for non-profit use. Second, I tried to replace the postal code parameter in the URL, but no dice. Non-geek translation: they make it difficult to check different postal codes. Since no list that I know is public domain, you'd have to more or less try each one to find the 500,000+ that are valid. Could take a while. d. |
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Hugh : for the finance data, if you ask for data per contributor, you can have, for example, all data for all parties (only parties, not election finance rounds), for all periods (2005-2006) in one file (something like 9.5MB
with means many many data). You can do the same for each general election : ask for contributor for all parties, all ridings.
If we have to retrieve 1 set of data for each quarter and each general election, it,s not that bad. Cocnerning the tool for the ZIP code/riding, same conclusion as Daniel, no obvious way to retrieve that for what I can see. On 2/2/07, Daniel Haran
<[hidden email]> wrote: On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: |
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In reply to this post by Daniel Haran
email sent to elections canada:
Dear Elections Canada, Do you have a complete list of postal codes sorted by electoral ridings that is accessible to citizens in an accessible data format (eg text or tab-delimited)? Is it possible to get such a list? Thanks, Hugh McGuire On Feb 2, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Daniel Haran wrote: > On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: >>> For the other elements, I don't know. A mapping zipcode/riding >>> would be very useful for example >> elections canada provides this search tool: >> http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/FindED.aspx?L=e >> >> so the data is there... can we get it out tho? >>> >> >> h. > > Well, I first checked the copyright, which seems OK for non-profit > use. > > Second, I tried to replace the postal code parameter in the URL, but > no dice. Non-geek translation: they make it difficult to check > different postal codes. Since no list that I know is public domain, > you'd have to more or less try each one to find the 500,000+ that are > valid. Could take a while. > > d. > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > discuss_civicaccess.ca |
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Arg, I was about to write the same :p
On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote:
email sent to elections canada: |
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In reply to this post by Hugh McGuire
The boundary description of each district is SO helpful...
On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]
> wrote: email sent to elections canada: |
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In reply to this post by Stéphane Zagar
On 2/2/07, Stéphane Zagar <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Cocnerning the tool for the ZIP code/riding, same conclusion as Daniel, no > obvious way to retrieve that for what I can see. Russell McOrmond already has that part for http://digitalcopyright.ca/ -- Robin 'oqp' Millette : http://rym.waglo.com/ |
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typo, that should be: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/
On 2/2/07, Robin Millette <[hidden email]> wrote: > On 2/2/07, Stéphane Zagar <[hidden email]> wrote: > > > Cocnerning the tool for the ZIP code/riding, same conclusion as Daniel, no > > obvious way to retrieve that for what I can see. > > Russell McOrmond already has that part for http://digitalcopyright.ca/ > |
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In reply to this post by Daniel Haran
Daniel Haran wrote:
> Well, I first checked the copyright, which seems OK for non-profit use. > Second, I tried to replace the postal code parameter in the URL, but > no dice. Non-geek translation: they make it difficult to check > different postal codes. Since no list that I know is public domain, > you'd have to more or less try each one to find the 500,000+ that are > valid. Could take a while. > > d. > Hey folks, I'd like to move howdtheyvote/quivotequoi in this direction too. Since we're already becoming a storing house for political information, why stop at votes? In the past i've aggregated US zip codes from a web form -- doing the same for Canada wouldn't be difficult. One of the things high on my queue is hooking up geocoder to the geogratis electoral districts shapefile; this means we can return the electoral district / mp, etc when given a postal code or lat/long coordiates (and gives us the opportunity to find a location by clicking on a map). The main question is what can we redistribute? I think we are safe just providing these things as a service (with a big disclaimer at the bottom outlining the limitations of reuse, pointing at the backwards policies of the source data). Allowing people to download the whole thing is probably okay, but we might have to attach a big ugly license to it. If people are willing to help scrape the information, i'm willing to host/present it. Cheers, Cory. |
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If I read this page correctly:
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193U it costs $500 to get a list of postal codes sorted by electoral ridings (not sure how you can then use that data? ... but surely such "data" isn't copyrighted? it's just the formatted data right? I mean you can't copyright "the list of Canadian postal codes sorted by federal ridings," can you?) also of note, I am sure many of you know about it, the "data liberation initiative" of statscan: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/dli.htm This is my favourite part from their documentation: "When the cost of Statistics Canada data increased in the 1980's, researchers, students and instructors at Canadian post secondary institutions made increased use of American, British and even Chinese data. This cheaper foreign data did not always reflect the Canadian situation, and there were often gaps in the data." and I sent them this email: "Hello, Do you have any plans in the works to liberate all that data to the rest of us? Why only post-secondary institutions? What about citizens of Canada? Thanks, etc." On Feb 2, 2007, at 3:30 PM, Cory Horner wrote: > Daniel Haran wrote: >> Well, I first checked the copyright, which seems OK for non-profit >> use. >> Second, I tried to replace the postal code parameter in the URL, but >> no dice. Non-geek translation: they make it difficult to check >> different postal codes. Since no list that I know is public domain, >> you'd have to more or less try each one to find the 500,000+ that are >> valid. Could take a while. >> >> d. >> > Hey folks, > > I'd like to move howdtheyvote/quivotequoi in this direction too. > Since > we're already becoming a storing house for political information, why > stop at votes? > > In the past i've aggregated US zip codes from a web form -- doing the > same for Canada wouldn't be difficult. One of the things high on my > queue is hooking up geocoder to the geogratis electoral districts > shapefile; this means we can return the electoral district / mp, etc > when given a postal code or lat/long coordiates (and gives us the > opportunity to find a location by clicking on a map). > > The main question is what can we redistribute? I think we are safe > just > providing these things as a service (with a big disclaimer at the > bottom > outlining the limitations of reuse, pointing at the backwards policies > of the source data). Allowing people to download the whole thing is > probably okay, but we might have to attach a big ugly license to it. > > If people are willing to help scrape the information, i'm willing to > host/present it. > > Cheers, > Cory. > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- > discuss_civicaccess.ca |
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On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote:
> If I read this page correctly: > http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193U > > it costs $500 to get a list of postal codes sorted by electoral > ridings (not sure how you can then use that data? ... but surely such > "data" isn't copyrighted? it's just the formatted data right? I mean > you can't copyright "the list of Canadian postal codes sorted by > federal ridings," can you?) Postal codes are facts, and can't be copyrighted. I don't think there are DB rights yet here either. What this means is, if we aggregate the info ourselves, we can do what we want with that information, such as sharing it as we want. Should the developpers keep exchanging on this list to get to the gritty details, or can we setup another list - or just a plain to/cc chain? I'm rather busy this week unfortunately, but then again, why the sudden rush? I can help with a few things on the back end, I probably already have some code and data I scraped a while ago. You can write me off-list if you think I can help, I won't be able to keep up with this list for the next couple of days. -- Robin 'oqp' Millette : http://rym.waglo.com/ |
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Whichever develops, please send out a general invite. I'm just a lurker
(like most folks seem to be since I subscribed) but am doing research on how things like this develop to fruition. cheers -evan- On Fri, 2007-02-02 at 16:32 -0500, Robin Millette wrote: > On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: > > If I read this page correctly: > > http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193U > > > > it costs $500 to get a list of postal codes sorted by electoral > > ridings (not sure how you can then use that data? ... but surely such > > "data" isn't copyrighted? it's just the formatted data right? I mean > > you can't copyright "the list of Canadian postal codes sorted by > > federal ridings," can you?) > > Postal codes are facts, and can't be copyrighted. I don't think there > are DB rights yet here either. What this means is, if we aggregate the > info ourselves, we can do what we want with that information, such as > sharing it as we want. > > Should the developpers keep exchanging on this list to get to the > gritty details, or can we setup another list - or just a plain to/cc > chain? > > I'm rather busy this week unfortunately, but then again, why the > sudden rush? I can help with a few things on the back end, I probably > already have some code and data I scraped a while ago. You can write > me off-list if you think I can help, I won't be able to keep up with > this list for the next couple of days. > |
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In reply to this post by Robin Millette
On 2-Feb-07, at 1:32 PM, Robin Millette wrote: > On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: >> If I read this page correctly: >> http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193U >> >> it costs $500 to get a list of postal codes sorted by electoral >> ridings (not sure how you can then use that data? ... but surely such >> "data" isn't copyrighted? it's just the formatted data right? I mean >> you can't copyright "the list of Canadian postal codes sorted by >> federal ridings," can you?) > > Postal codes are facts, and can't be copyrighted. I don't think there > are DB rights yet here either. What this means is, if we aggregate the > info ourselves, we can do what we want with that information, such as > sharing it as we want. > > Should the developpers keep exchanging on this list to get to the > gritty details, or can we setup another list - or just a plain to/cc > chain? > > I'm rather busy this week unfortunately, but then again, why the > sudden rush? I can help with a few things on the back end, I probably > already have some code and data I scraped a while ago. You can write > me off-list if you think I can help, I won't be able to keep up with > this list for the next couple of days. I can help out with Manitoba info, both Postal Codes and electoral district info (both provincial and federal). shawn |
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i like hearing about the nitty gritty so might be good to keep the
conversation going here. the original postal code data is available here - http://www.canadapost.ca/offerings/address_management/can/other_data-e.asp (not price or user friendly) Shawn Wallbridge wrote: > On 2-Feb-07, at 1:32 PM, Robin Millette wrote: > > >> On 2/2/07, Hugh McGuire <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >>> If I read this page correctly: >>> http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193U >>> >>> it costs $500 to get a list of postal codes sorted by electoral >>> ridings (not sure how you can then use that data? ... but surely such >>> "data" isn't copyrighted? it's just the formatted data right? I mean >>> you can't copyright "the list of Canadian postal codes sorted by >>> federal ridings," can you?) >>> >> Postal codes are facts, and can't be copyrighted. I don't think there >> are DB rights yet here either. What this means is, if we aggregate the >> info ourselves, we can do what we want with that information, such as >> sharing it as we want. >> >> Should the developpers keep exchanging on this list to get to the >> gritty details, or can we setup another list - or just a plain to/cc >> chain? >> >> I'm rather busy this week unfortunately, but then again, why the >> sudden rush? I can help with a few things on the back end, I probably >> already have some code and data I scraped a while ago. You can write >> me off-list if you think I can help, I won't be able to keep up with >> this list for the next couple of days. >> > > I can help out with Manitoba info, both Postal Codes and electoral > district info (both provincial and federal). > > shawn > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca > > > |
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On 2/2/07, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:
> i like hearing about the nitty gritty so might be good to keep the > conversation going here. > > the original postal code data is available here - > http://www.canadapost.ca/offerings/address_management/can/other_data-e.asp > (not price or user friendly) I can provide a full list of postal codes and related federal districts sometime tomorrow. It's been on my todo list for what, 3 years now... -- Robin 'oqp' Millette : http://rym.waglo.com/ |
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In reply to this post by Hugh McGuire
see: http://civicaccess.ca/wiki/ProjetsCiviques
Shall i start up spot and some notes about visiblepolitics.org on the civicaccess wiki somewhere? cheers t Hugh McGuire wrote: > If I read this page correctly: > http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0193U > > it costs $500 to get a list of postal codes sorted by electoral > ridings (not sure how you can then use that data? ... but surely such > "data" isn't copyrighted? it's just the formatted data right? I mean > you can't copyright "the list of Canadian postal codes sorted by > federal ridings," can you?) > > also of note, I am sure many of you know about it, the "data > liberation initiative" of statscan: > http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/dli.htm > > This is my favourite part from their documentation: > "When the cost of Statistics Canada data increased in the 1980's, > researchers, students and instructors at Canadian post secondary > institutions made increased use of American, British and even Chinese > data. This cheaper foreign data did not always reflect the Canadian > situation, and there were often gaps in the data." > > and I sent them this email: > > "Hello, > > Do you have any plans in the works to liberate all that data to the > rest of us? Why only post-secondary institutions? What about citizens > of Canada? > > Thanks, > etc." > > > On Feb 2, 2007, at 3:30 PM, Cory Horner wrote: > > >> Daniel Haran wrote: >> >>> Well, I first checked the copyright, which seems OK for non-profit >>> use. >>> Second, I tried to replace the postal code parameter in the URL, but >>> no dice. Non-geek translation: they make it difficult to check >>> different postal codes. Since no list that I know is public domain, >>> you'd have to more or less try each one to find the 500,000+ that are >>> valid. Could take a while. >>> >>> d. >>> >>> >> Hey folks, >> >> I'd like to move howdtheyvote/quivotequoi in this direction too. >> Since >> we're already becoming a storing house for political information, why >> stop at votes? >> >> In the past i've aggregated US zip codes from a web form -- doing the >> same for Canada wouldn't be difficult. One of the things high on my >> queue is hooking up geocoder to the geogratis electoral districts >> shapefile; this means we can return the electoral district / mp, etc >> when given a postal code or lat/long coordiates (and gives us the >> opportunity to find a location by clicking on a map). >> >> The main question is what can we redistribute? I think we are safe >> just >> providing these things as a service (with a big disclaimer at the >> bottom >> outlining the limitations of reuse, pointing at the backwards policies >> of the source data). Allowing people to download the whole thing is >> probably okay, but we might have to attach a big ugly license to it. >> >> If people are willing to help scrape the information, i'm willing to >> host/present it. >> >> Cheers, >> Cory. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess- >> discuss_civicaccess.ca >> > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://civicaccess.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss_civicaccess.ca > > > |
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