Straight-ticket voting, which allows a voter to cast all his votes for one party with a single mark on the ballot, has been eliminated in many states but remains popular in Alabama.

Leaders of Alabama's Democratic and Republican parties say they don't hear any calls for ending the practice.

In Alabama's last two general elections with a race for governor on the ballot, almost half of the voters who participated did so with a straight-ticket vote.

Mitchell Brown, a professor in the political science department at Auburn University, said straight-ticket voting is popular where it's still allowed because it's fast and convenient for party loyalists.

"People who are strong partisans still use it because they're only going to vote for people in their party, so why should they bother going down and checking off the candidates individually," Brown said.

An argument used against straight-ticket voting is that it can have undue influence on low-profile races, Brown said.

"The idea being that, particularly if at the top of the ticket you had a very popular candidate, then the straight-ticket voting option then gave an unfair advantage to the down-ballot candidates at the local level who were aligned with the popular candidate at the top of the ballot."

Ryan Williamson, an assistant professor in the political science department at Auburn, said the availability of the straight-ticket voting option probably has minimal effect on the races at the top of the ticket, like the governor's race in Alabama this year.

"It's more a matter of the governor's race having an impact on down ballot races," Williamson said.

Williamson said straight-ticket voting can result in a consequential lack of attention to down-ballot races.

"Straight-ticket voting, to a certain degree, makes sense when we're talking about the president or the governor or a seat in Congress because we generally know where candidates fall on a number of important issues that those offices are going to tackle," Williamson said.

"When you're talking about a lot of lower level, local offices, where we're talking about economic development and land usage, those issues don't neatly fit into a left vs. right argument. So, you could end up with a situation where straight-ticket voting, you have voters actually voting against their best interests because perhaps they would be better off selecting a more qualified candidate who maybe does happen to better align with their views on the less partisan issues."

Williamson said a potential benefit from straight-ticket voting is that it increases participation because of the convenience. For parties, it also helps offset the cost of trying to mobilize voters for the down-ballot races, Williamson said.

In Alabama's 2010 general election, 48 percent of the almost 1.5 million voters who participated did so with a straight-ticket vote, according to the secretary of state's office. That included 357,525 straight-ticket votes by Democrats, 353,037 by Republicans and 540 for the Constitution Party.

In the 2014 general election, 49.5 percent of participants cast a straight-ticket vote. That included 316,551 Republican voters and 273,655 Democratic voters.

Fourteen states have abolished straight-ticket voting since 1994, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Last year in Texas, Republican legislators passed a bill to eliminate straight-ticket voting over the opposition of most Democrats and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law.

In the 2016 election, almost 64 percent of participating voters in the 10 largest counties in Texas used straight-ticket ballots, according to The Texas Tribune.

The Texas ban takes effect with the 2020 election. That will leave just seven states allowing straight-ticket voting, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Utah.

Michigan's abolishment of straight-ticket voting in 2016 led to a federal court challenge over whether the move disproportionately affected African-Americans, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A district court temporarily issued a preliminary injunction to block the law, but an appeals court ordered it to take effect and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to keep straight-ticket voting for the 2018 election.

There's no indication Alabama will be the next state to ban straight-ticket voting.

"It seems to be a matter of convenience for a lot of voters," state Republican Party Chairwoman Terry Lathan said. "They seem to like it a lot."

Lathan said she knows of no effort to do away with straight-ticket voting.

"It hasn't come up in the party, at all," Lathan said. "And I haven't heard any chatter from any legislators about it."

Alabama Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley said she believes Alabama voters are generally independent thinkers who vote for the person, not the party. She said she's heard no call for eliminating straight-ticket voting as an option.

"My personal position is to support the current system and allow the voter to choose the best candidate for the position," Worley said in an email.

Williamson said there are reasons that Democrats, despite having only one statewide officeholder, Sen. Doug Jones, want to keep straight-ticket voting. The state still has pockets where Democrats can dominate.

"It doesn't surprise me too much in the sense that there is still a sizable number of people at least in certain counties -- Jefferson County and Montgomery County -- where there is a large number of Democrats," Williamson said. "They benefit from straight-ticket voting within those individual areas.

"Being able to get your voters to support all your candidates, whether or not you're in the majority or the minority party, it really offsets the cost of campaigning.

Straight-ticket voting helps both major parties in one way. Williamson said it effectively boxes out third-party candidates and that's likely one reason some states adopted it. For example, it works against a third party that recruits a handful of candidates to run in selected down-ballot races.

"Their efforts are for naught for every voter that shows up and just straight-ticket votes Republican or Democrat," Williamson said.

Brown said some argue that eliminating straight-ticket voting would lead to a more informed electorate. But she doubts it would make much difference.

"One of the arguments for getting rid of it is that if people have to think about who they're voting for and who they're casting a ballot for that the electorate as a whole, if they're no longer allowed to use the straight-ticket option, that they'll spend more time preparing for the election and become more informed voters," Brown said. "I happen to be a little cynical. I don't think that's real in any plausible way. Strong partisan voters are going to vote for their party's candidates, period."