Extensive research suggests that political factors bias the domestic allocation of the European Structural and Investment Funds (SIF) in ways that may not be in line with EU goals. This article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the role of electoral institutions in shaping county‐level allocations of SIF. Drawing on theories of distributive politics and federalism, this article argues that electoral institutions provide politicians in the executive branch of national government with incentives to use at least a part of the SIF to buy votes in NUTS 3‐level counties, whereby vote‐buying is more common under majority voting than under proportional representation. The results of a statistical analysis of SIF allocations across 202 Italian and French NUTS 3‐level counties during 2007–13 confirm this argument. The article concludes by discussing the findings and their implications for future research on EU budgetary implementation and cohesion policy.