Thank you for your comments.
I started over and unchecked the NPC voting but left the other option on . I am still unsure how the voting works. I went around all my playable sims in the same area and had them vote as much as they could but noticed the one with the highest vote didn't get chosen. It all seems a lot of work for something I seem unable to control. It doesn't make the game fun for me anyway. I may eventually disable it.
It is such a shame as it would have been a nice touch to the game.
I think what happened last time I played, I either forgot to vote for the last slot or I left that neighbourhood before all the slots where chosen to play another neighbourhood. With both game options checked in my gameplay the unfilled slots where probably chosen by the game. It certainly is chaos.
There are two options I would not want in my game, the brown paper bags and the one where people can help themselves. Would have been nice if we could disable the options we don't want to have in own game. Personally I don't want Sims with brown paper bags on their heads or Sims helping themselves to items. I know things do go missing due to the kleptomaniac trait but I feel this is a step too far, although not encountered it in my game yet to comment fully on how it works.
I am playing further to see how this impacts my game and what work around I will use if I find things are not satisfactory.
Happy Simming