Final answer:
Split ticket voting has become less common in favor of straight-ticket voting due to increased political polarization. Voters now more consistently choose all candidates from their preferred political party, reflecting national issues overriding local concerns and individual candidate characteristics. The correct option is b).
Step-by-step explanation:
The type of voting that has become less common due to increased polarization is split ticket voting. Split ticket voting refers to the practice where voters choose candidates from different political parties for different offices within the same election.
However, as political polarization has increased, more voters are aligning strictly along party lines, often indicated by the rise of straight-ticket voting, where they select all candidates from their preferred political party with a single action.
In the past, regions like the South might have voted Republican for presidential elections while still electing Democrats for House and Senate seats, but this began to change in the 1980s and 1990s.
Now, voters who favor a particular party in a presidential election are much more likely to support that same party in House and Senate elections.
This shift towards party-line voting reflects greater political polarization and national issues driving congressional elections more than local concerns or the individual candidates themselves. Option b) is the correct one.