Structural and Investment Funds (SIFs) have become the European Union's most robust redistribution programme. In this article, we demonstrate that SIFs have grown large enough in scope that they are now beginning to function similarly to more established macroeconomic determinants of the vote such as unemployment and GDP growth in European Parliamentary elections. Moreover, SIFs have an electoral effect in a type of election that was previously assumed to be merely a referendum on national government performance: second‐order, EP elections. SIFs serve as an example of how robust public spending can have an electoral effect even in a second‐order election environment.

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Judicial Performance Evaluation (JPE) is generally seen as an important part of the merit system, which often suffers from a lack of relevant voter information. Utah's JPE system has undergone significant change in recent years. Using data from the two most recent JPE surveys, we provide a preliminary look at the operation of this new system. Our results suggest that the survey component has difficulty distinguishing among the judges on the basis of relevant criteria. The question prompts intended to measure performance on different ABA categories are also indistinguishable. We find evidence that, on some measures, female judges do disproportionately worse than male judges. We suggest that the free response comments and the new Court Observation Program results may improve the ability of the commission to make meaningful distinctions among the judges on the basis of appropriate criteria.

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