• Votes
  • Methods
    • /votes
  • Fields
    • Associated Bill
    • Associated Nominations
    • Voters
    • Vote Breakdown
    • RSS

Votes

Roll call votes taken by the House and Senate. This data is taken from original House and Senate sources, and goes back to 2009.

House and Senate votes normally appear within an hour after the vote is taken. House data usually appears more quickly, since the House uses an electronic voting system.

Votes taken by voice or unanimous consent, where the votes of individual representatives and senators are not recorded, are not present here.

Methods

All requests require a valid API key, and use the domain:

https://congress.api.sunlightfoundation.com

/votes

Search and filter through votes in Congress. Filter by any fields below that have a star next to them. All standard operators apply.

Recent votes in the Senate

/votes?chamber=senate&order=voted_at

Votes about ‘guns’

/votes?query=guns

Votes taken by Rep. Robert Aderholt

/votes?voter_ids.A000055__exists=true

Votes since July 2, 2013

/votes?voted_at__gte=2013-07-02T4:00:00Z

Fields

Many fields are not returned unless requested. You can request specific fields with the fields parameter. See the partial responses documentation for more details.

* = can be used as a filter

{
  "roll_id": "h7-2013",
  "chamber": "house",
  "number": 7,
  "year": 2013,
  "congress": 113,
  "voted_at": "2013-01-04T16:22:00Z",
  "vote_type": "passage",
  "roll_type": "On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass",
  "question": "On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass -- H.R. 41 -- To temporarily increase the borrowing authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program",
  "required": "2/3",
  "result": "Passed",
  "source": "http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll007.xml"
}

* roll_id
A unique identifier for a roll call vote. Made from the first letter of the chamber, the vote number, and the legislative year.

* chamber
The chamber the vote was taken in. “house” or “senate”.

* number
The number that vote was assigned. Numbers reset every legislative year.

* year
The “legislative year” of the vote. This is not quite the same as the calendar year - the legislative year changes at noon EST on January 3rd. A vote taken on January 1, 2013 has a “legislative year” of 2012.

* congress
The Congress this vote was taken in.

* voted_at
The time the vote was taken.

* vote_type
The type of vote being taken. This classification is imperfect and unofficial, and may change as we improve our detection. Valid types are “passage”, “cloture”, “nomination”, “impeachment”, “treaty”, “recommit”, “quorum”, “leadership”, and “other”.

* roll_type
The official description of the type of vote being taken.

question
The official full question that the vote is addressing.

* required
The required ratio of Aye votes necessary to pass the legislation. A value of “1/2” actually means more than 1/2. Ties are not possible in the Senate (the Vice President casts a tie-breaker vote), and in the House, a tie vote means the vote does not pass.

* result
The official result of the vote. This is not completely standardized (both “Passed” and “Bill Passed” may appear). In the case of a vote for Speaker of the House, the result field contains the name of the victor.

source
The original, official source XML for this vote information.

Associated Bill

{
  "bill_id": "hr41-113",
  "bill": {
    "bill_id": "hr41-113",
    "bill_type": "hr",
    "congress": 113
    ...
  }
}

* bill_id
If a vote is related to a bill, the bill’s ID.

bill
If a vote is related to a bill, some basic fields about the bill.

Associated Nominations

{
  "nomination_id": "PN202-113",
  "nomination": {
    "organization": "The Judiciary",
    "received_on": "2013-03-19",
    "nominees": [
      {
        "name": "Elaine D. Kaplan",
        "position": "Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims",
        "state": "DC"
      }
    ]
    ...
  }
}

These fields can only occur on Senate votes, as the Senate is the only chamber which considers presidential nominations.

* nomination_id
If a vote is related to a nomination, the nomination’s ID.

nomination
If a vote is related to a nomination, some basic fields about the nomination.

Voters

{
  "voter_ids": {
    "A000055": "Yea",
    "A000361": "Yea"
    ...
  },
  "voters": {
    "A000055": {
      "vote": "Yea",
      "voter": {
        "bioguide_id": "A000055",
        "chamber": "house"
        ...
      }
    },
    "A000361": {
      "vote": "Yea",
      "voter": {
        "bioguide_id": "A000361",
        "chamber": "house"
        ...
      }
    }
    ...
  }
}

Most votes are “Yea”, “Nay”, “Present”, and “Not Voting”. There are exceptions: in the Senate, impeachment votes are “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”. In the House, votes for the Speaker of the House are the name of the person being voted for (e.g. “Pelosi” or “Boehner”). There may be other exceptions.

voter_ids
An object connecting bioguide IDs of legislators to the vote values they cast.

voters
An object connecting bioguide IDs to their vote value, and some basic information about the voter.

voters.vote
The value of the vote this voter cast.

voters.voter
Some basic fields about the voter.

Vote Breakdown

{
  "breakdown": {
    "total": {
      "Yea": 62,
      "Nay": 36,
      "Not Voting": 2,
      "Present": 0
    },
    "party": {
      "R": {
        "Yea": 9,
        "Nay": 36,
        "Not Voting": 0,
        "Present": 0
      },
      "D": {
        "Yea": 52,
        "Not Voting": 1,
        "Nay": 0,
        "Present": 0
      },
      "I": {
        "Not Voting": 1,
        "Yea": 1,
        "Nay": 0,
        "Present": 0
      }
    }
  }
}

The vote breakdown gives top-level numbers about what votes were cast.

Most votes are “Yea”, “Nay”, “Present”, and “Not Voting”. There are exceptions: in the Senate, impeachment votes are “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”. In the House, votes for the Speaker of the House are the name of the person being voted for (e.g. “Pelosi” or “Boehner”). There may be other exceptions.

Values for “Present” and “Not Voting” will always be present, no matter what kind of vote it is.

These fields are dynamic, but can all be filtered on.

* breakdown.total.[vote]
The number of members who cast [vote], where [vote] is a valid vote as defined above.

* breakdown.party.[party].[vote]
The number of members of [party] who cast [vote], where [party] is one of “D”, “R”, or “I”, and [vote] is a valid vote as defined above.

RSS

If experimental RSS support is enabled, the following field->RSS mapping will be used by default: