https://github.com/alanmarazzi/mepcheck
Python package to retrieve MEPs voting data from Votewatch.eu. Check what your MEPs are doing in a few simple commands.
https://github.com/alanmarazzi/mepcheck
data data-retrieval europe european-parliament mep meps politics python scraper voting-data
Last synced: 7 months ago
JSON representation
Python package to retrieve MEPs voting data from Votewatch.eu. Check what your MEPs are doing in a few simple commands.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/alanmarazzi/mepcheck
- Owner: alanmarazzi
- License: mit
- Created: 2017-03-23T16:26:58.000Z (over 8 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2021-03-13T00:35:21.000Z (over 4 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-02-20T18:19:41.338Z (8 months ago)
- Topics: data, data-retrieval, europe, european-parliament, mep, meps, politics, python, scraper, voting-data
- Language: Python
- Homepage: https://www.rdisorder.eu/2018/01/19/releasing-mepcheck/
- Size: 46.9 KB
- Stars: 7
- Watchers: 2
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
[](https://travis-ci.org/alanmarazzi/mepcheck) [](https://codebeat.co/projects/github-com-alanmarazzi-mepcheck-master) [](https://codecov.io/gh/alanmarazzi/mepcheck) [](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
# What is it
**MEPcheck** is a Python package for easy and automatic retrieval of voting data about MEPs (Members of European Parliament). Many people complain they don't know what the EU is doing and especially what MEPs from their country are doing. Take control of your representatives and easily show others what's happening in Brussels/Strasbourg!
# Try it
To try MEPcheck you can install via pip:
```bash
pip install mepcheck
```
Or cloning this GitHub repo:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/alanmarazzi/mepcheck.git
```
Then you can install it as a regular package after installing dependencies:
```bash
cd mepcheck
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install .
```
# Command Line Interface
After installing you can use **MEPcheck** directly from the command line with
```bash
python mepcheckCLI.py # prints available countries
python mepcheckCLI.py -c spain # prints MEPs from inserted country and their ids
python mepcheckCLI.py --mep 123 # see last 50 votes of a MEP
python mepcheckCLI.py --mep 123 --limit 10 # limit to last 10 votes
python mepcheckCLI.py --mep 123 -s # get a summary by time frame
python mepcheckCLI.py --mep 123 -d json # get votes in json format
```
# From Python
You can import the `mepcheck` module in Python and use it interactively or programmatically:
```python
from mepcheck import EUvotes, get_meps
```
Now you can start retrieving data for all MEPs from [Votewatch](http://www.votewatch.eu/), to check all MEPS and their ids use `get_meps`: if you don't pass any argument you'll get a list of all available countries, if you pass a country you'll get a table with all the MEPs from that country and their id for data retrieval:
```python
get_meps()
get_meps(country='latvia')
```
To get data use the `EUvotes` class, you can just pass the id of the MEP you're interested in and then you can take a look at the data right away:
```python
votes = EUvotes(123, limit=20)
print(votes)
votes.print_attendance(summary=True)
```
To use data you can return all retrieved data in various formats: *json*, *list* or if you like in a [pandas](http://pandas.pydata.org/) *DataFrame*:
```python
votes.data_(shape='list', limit=10)
```
Note that if you want a *DataFrame* you have to install pandas since it is not a requirement.
You can also increase or decrease the number of votes stored in the **EUvotes** object after initialization:
```python
votes.change_limit(limit=200)
```
# Docker
If you want **MEPcheck** to work out of the box and use it from everywhere without messing with your *PATH*, just build it with *Docker*.
The process after cloning this repo is:
```bash
cd mepcheck
docker build -t mepcheck .
```
Then just put in your `.bashrc` file:
```bash
# Remember to put `sudo` before the command if you need to
alias mepcheck='docker run --rm mepcheck'
```
Now either you `source ~/.bashrc` or close and reopen your terminal, at this point you can try it with:
```bash
mepcheck --mep 123
```
# Contributing
I'm open to any kind of contribution: ideas, pull requests and bug signaling are welcome.
## Thanks to
- [logomakr](https://logomakr.com/)
- [Votewatch](http://www.votewatch.eu/)
- [Beautiful Soup](https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/)
- [requests](http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/)
- [prettytable](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PrettyTable)