Office

  • The Office element defines an office and its associated information, identified by electoral district and office role.

  • Office is used in all feed types except referenda, though its interpretation varies based on the feed type.

  • In an election context, Office represents the office title being sought, while in an officeholder context, it signifies a specific single-person seat.

Use Office to define an office and information associated with its contest. An office is identified by its electoral district and its office role.

The Office element applies to all feed types but doesn't need to be specified for referenda.

Select one of the following feed types to learn more about how to use Office with that type of feed.

Attributes

The following table describes the attributes for Office:

Attribute Required? Type Description
objectId Required ID Unique internal identifier that's used by other elements to reference this element.

Elements

The following table describes the elements for Office:

Element Multiplicity Type Description
ContactInformation 0 or more ContactInformation Associates various contact information with the office. If this element is included, only specify information that's related to the office itself, not the candidate or current officeholder.
ElectoralDistrictId 0 or 1 IDREF

Provide the objectId of the GpUnit that represents the electoral district. For example, give a state, like "Alaska," for a US Senator, or a district, like "New York's 14th congressional district," for a US Representative.

For the officeholder feed, we expect one Office per seat and the ElectoralDistrictId set to the district that elected that person into office.

Example: The Taiwan legislative election

  • Give each member of the Legislative Yuan a different Office, based on their district.

Another example: US senate officeholder feed

  • Provide 100 Office objects for the US Senate.
ExternalIdentifiers 1 ExternalIdentifiers

Associates an ID with the office. A stable identifier is required. Stable identifiers for offices must be unique across office tenures. For example, each of the following tenures need a distinct office stable identifier:

  • Grover Cleveland's presidency from 1885 to 1889
  • Grover Cleveland's presidency from 1893 to 1897
  • Franklin Roosevelt's presidency from 1933 to 1945

The ExternalIdentifiers element of Office lets you provide additional information with particular values for OtherType. For more details, see Additional types for ExternalIdentifiers.
GovernmentBodyIds 0 or 1 IDREFS Provide the objectId of the GovernmentBody that this office is part of. For example United States Senate for a US Senator
Name 1 InternationalizedText Provides the full name of the generic title of this office. This must include the jurisdiction of the office but exclude any information that's related to the electoral district.

Examples:

  • Member of Parliament of Singapore
  • Prime Minister of India
  • President of Indonesia
  • United States Senator
JurisdictionId 0 or 1 IDREF

Provide the objectId of the GpUnit that specifies the office's jurisdiction.
Level 0 or 1 OfficeLevel

The enumerated type of the office's level. See reference for complete list of options.
Role 0 or more OfficeRole The enumerated type of the office's Role, such as cabinet member or president. See reference for all possible options.
OfficeHolderPersonIds 1 IDREFS

Provide the objectId of the Person that holds this office.
SeatStatus 0 or 1 SeatStatus The enumerated type of the officeholder's SeatStatus, such as active or on-leave. The default value is active if no SeatStatus is specified.
SelectionMethod 0 or more OfficeSelectionMethod Information on how the officeholder is selected or placed into office.
Term 1 Term Provides office term-related information.

Additional types for ExternalIdentifiers

In the ExternalIdentifiers element of Office, provide additional data with a Type of other, along with values for OtherType and Value. The following table shows possible values for these elements:

OtherType Example values Description
jurisdiction-id gpu1

The objectId of the GpUnit that specifies the office's jurisdiction.
government-body United States Senate See GovernmentBody.
legislative-session 116th United States Congress
office-level Country Must be a value from OfficeLevel. If none apply, reach out to your Google contact.
office-role upper house

Must be a value from OfficeRole. If none apply, reach out to your Google contact.
office-seat Position 1, Seat 2, unexpired, special, Seat 2 special

Use this to differentiate offices with multiple seats or positions, and for at-large and unexpired offices.

Examples

XML

    <Office objectId="off0">
      <ExternalIdentifiers>
        <ExternalIdentifier>
          <Type>other</Type>
          <OtherType>stable</OtherType>
          <Value>stable-off0</Value>
        </ExternalIdentifier>
      </ExternalIdentifiers>
      <GovernmentBodyIds>gb-1</GovernmentBodyIds>
      <JurisdictionId>ru-gpu0</JurisdictionId>
      <Level>Administrative Area 1</Level>
      <Name>
        <Text language="en">United States Senator</Text>
      </Name>
      <Role>upper house</Role>
      <SelectionMethod>directly-elected</SelectionMethod>
      <Term>
        <StartDate>2019-01-02</StartDate>
      </Term>
    </Office>