Butler County Ballot Guide

Independent voter guide — not an official ballot or county publication. No candidate, campaign, committee, or government office paid for, provided, or approved any part of it. Ballot wording is reproduced from the Butler County Clerk's own published sample ballot; verify anything here at 573-686-8050.

The short version

Three things matter on this ballot

Amendment 5 phases out the state income tax and lets the legislature expand sales taxes to replace it. It is a one-way door — once the income tax is gone, the constitution would forbid bringing it back.
Amendment 4 makes it much harder for citizens to amend the constitution by petition, while leaving the legislature's own path untouched.
Two contested local races — State Representative 152nd District, and Recorder of Deeds. Of the ten county and judicial offices on the ballot, nine are unopposed.

A court had to rewrite the ballot wording on both Amendment 4 and Amendment 5, because judges ruled the legislature's own language failed to tell voters what the measures do.

That is not an opinion. It happened twice, in 2026, and it's a matter of public record. Links are at the bottom.

Step one

Which ballot do you ask for?

Missouri does not register voters by party. You walk in and request one of four ballots. Which one you asked for is noted in the poll book — it does not make you a member of anything.

Ballot	What you get to vote on
Republican	All 4 amendments + state races + every county office
Democratic	All 4 amendments + state races. No county offices.
Libertarian	All 4 amendments + 2 state races
Non-Partisan	All 4 amendments only. No candidates.

Two things most people don't know

You can vote on all four amendments without picking a party. Ask for the non-partisan ballot. It exists and nobody advertises it.

But in Butler County, the Republican primary is the election for county offices. No Democrat filed for a single county position. Whoever wins that primary on August 4 will hold the office. Take a different ballot and you've given up your only say in those.

That's the real tradeoff. Decide it before you're standing at the table.

1 Constitutional Amendment

Parks, soil & water sales tax

Constitutional Amendment No. 1

Proposed by Article IV, Section 47(c)
(Second Regular Session) SJR No. 1

Shall Missouri continue for 10 years the one-tenth of one percent sales/use tax that is used for soil and water conservation and for state parks and historic sites, and resubmit this tax to the voters for approval in 10 years?

The measure allows continued collection of the existing sales and use tax, which generates revenue of approximately $140 million annually.

YES NO

Exact text as printed on the Butler County ballot.

In plain English

This renews a tax that already exists. It is not a new one. A tenth of a penny on the dollar, on the books since the 1980s, and the constitution requires it be sent back to voters every ten years — which is the only reason it's here.

Raises about $140 million a year, split between state parks and soil-and-water conservation
Provided 75% of the state parks division's revenue in 2025
If it fails, it expires in 2028
Passed with 80% approval in 2016

The case for

It's already in your prices and has been for forty years — voting yes changes nothing about what you pay. It keeps state park admission free and funds soil and water conservation, which in a farming region isn't an abstraction. Without it, parks compete for general revenue, which allocated all of $214,970 to state parks in fiscal 2027. That's not a funding plan.

The case against

It's still a tax, and a sales tax at that — you pay it whether you ever set foot in a state park or not. A ten-year automatic renewal cycle means it gets very little scrutiny. If you think government should fund parks out of what it already collects, this is where you say so.

The catch

There isn't much of one. This is the only measure on the ballot with no lawsuit, no rewritten language, and no hidden money. Note its fine print — "Proposed by Article IV, Section 47(c)" means the constitution itself put it here automatically, not a politician.

2 Constitutional Amendment

Elected assessors in charter counties

Constitutional Amendment No. 2

Proposed by 103rd General Assembly
(First Regular Session) HCS HJR Nos. 23 & 3

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

• require all charter counties, including Jackson County, to provide for the election of a county assessor; and
• require assessors in all charter counties to comply with any training requirements established by general law?

State and local governmental entities estimate no costs or savings.

YES NO

In plain English

This does not affect Butler County. Butler is not a charter county — we already elect our assessor, as do the vast majority of Missouri counties.

Exactly one county in Missouri appoints rather than elects its assessor: Jackson County (Kansas City). After an assessment scandal there that ended with the county executive being recalled, Jackson County voters already voted 88% in favor of electing theirs. This writes the same fix into the state constitution.

The case for

Officials who set the value of your home should answer to you at the ballot box. Straightforward accountability, and the affected county's own voters overwhelmingly agree.

The case against

Appointed assessors can be hired for technical competence rather than popularity, and assessment is a technical job. There's also a fair objection to the whole state voting on one county's internal structure.

The catch

It isn't a trap — it's just not your fight. This is the ballot's low-stakes item for a Butler County voter. Vote your principle and move on.

Where's Amendment 3?

Your ballot jumps from 2 to 4. That's not a misprint. Amendment 3 — which would ban most abortions in Missouri — was placed on the November general election ballot instead, not this one. You'll vote on it, just not in August.

4 Constitutional Amendment

Making it harder to amend the constitution by petition

Constitutional Amendment No. 4

Proposed by 103rd General Assembly
(Second Extraordinary Session) HCS HJR No. 3

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

• Modify current requirements that a statewide majority of voters may approve initiative petitions to amend the constitution;
• Require a majority of voters in each congressional district to approve initiative petitions to amend the constitution; and
• Make available to each voter the full text of initiative petitions with their ballot?

The Department of Corrections estimates increased annual costs of up to $21,817. The Office of State Public Defender estimates an unknown fiscal impact. Other state governmental entities estimate no costs or savings. Local governmental entities estimate no costs or savings.

YES NO

In plain English

Today, if citizens gather signatures and put an amendment on the ballot, it passes with a simple statewide majority — more yes votes than no votes.

Amendment 4 would additionally require it to win a majority in each of Missouri's eight congressional districts. Lose one district by a single vote and the measure fails, even if it won statewide in a landslide.

The part you have to see

It applies only to citizen petitions. It does not apply to amendments the legislature puts on the ballot.

Amendments 1, 2, 4 and 5 — every measure on your ballot right now — came from state government. Under Amendment 4, those would still need only a simple majority. Only the citizen route gets the higher bar.

Analysis cited by the Missouri Independent found that Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, sales tax caps, and the 2024 abortion measure would all have failed under this rule — even though each won statewide.

The case for

Missouri's constitution is unusually easy to amend, and it has filled with policy that arguably belongs in ordinary law where mistakes can be fixed. Requiring broad geographic support means rural Missouri can't be steamrolled by St. Louis and Kansas City turnout — the same logic behind the U.S. Senate. Supporters also point to out-of-state money bankrolling petition drives. And it adds a real transparency win: you'd receive the full text of any petition with your ballot.

The case against

It's one-sided by design. If the concern were genuinely that the constitution is too easy to amend, the higher bar would apply to the legislature's own amendments too. It doesn't. The body that wrote this rule is the same body citizens use petitions to go around — and it exempted itself. Critics also note it reduces penalties for petition fraud to a maximum of one year and a $1,000 fine.

The catch — and this one is documented

The legislature's original ballot summary led with foreign campaign spending, petition fraud, and public hearings. A judge ordered all of it stripped out in March 2026, ruling that it largely restated existing law and did not reveal what the measure actually does.

The wording in the yellow box above is what a court forced onto the ballot. It is not what lawmakers wanted you to read.

Questions to ask yourself

Do I want the rural-veto protection enough to accept that the legislature exempted itself from it?
If this passes, what's my realistic path to changing state policy when the legislature won't?

5 Constitutional Amendment · the biggest item

Phasing out the state income tax

Constitutional Amendment No. 5

Proposed by 103rd General Assembly
(Second Regular Session) SS SCS HCS HJR Nos. 173 & 174

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

• Require legislative phase-out of the individual state income tax based on revenue growth, and authorize the expansion of sales and use taxes;
• Curtail constitutional limits on taxing goods and services; and
• Require local tax rate cuts without reducing school funding if local sales tax revenue increases?

The proposal has no direct impact on state or local tax revenue. If passed, implementing legislation will have an unknown impact to state and local tax revenue. If implemented, state government entities expect a reduction of $57,000 annually in income tax check-off donations and implementation costs of at least $100,000.

YES NO

In plain English

Missouri's income tax is graduated from 2% up to a top rate of 4.7%, and supplies roughly two-thirds of the state's general revenue. Amendment 5 does three things:

Orders the legislature to shrink the income tax as state revenue grows, until it's gone.
Once it's gone, the constitution forbids ever bringing it back.
Gives the legislature a five-year window to expand sales and use taxes to new goods and services, with constitutional limits on what can be taxed loosened.

The guardrails written in: any expansion must be for the purpose of reducing income tax, must be "revenue neutral or less," must happen in the same piece of legislation, and must occur inside that five-year window.

Three things that aren't on the ballot

One — it's a one-way door. Once the income tax is eliminated, the constitution bars reinstating it. If the replacement doesn't work, or a recession hits, or the math was wrong, there is no going back. Nothing on your ballot tells you this.

Two — the plan doesn't exist yet. You aren't voting on a tax swap. You're voting to instruct the legislature to design one later. Which services get taxed — labor, repairs, haircuts, childcare, contracting, professional fees — is entirely undecided.

Three — read the fiscal note in the yellow box above. "Unknown impact." That is the official fiscal analysis of a measure aimed at two-thirds of the state budget.

The case for

Competitiveness. Texas, Florida and Tennessee have no income tax and pull in businesses and workers. Missouri competes with them for both.

Taxing work vs. taxing spending. An income tax takes its cut before you decide anything; a consumption tax only hits when you buy. Rep. Bishop Davidson calls the income tax "a penalty on being productive, a penalty on being creative, a penalty on working hard."

It's already worked once. Missouri cut its top rate from 6% to 4.7% in recent years and revenue kept growing.

It's gradual and conditional — tied to revenue growth rather than a hard date, so in theory it only proceeds when the state can afford it. And the revenue-neutral requirement is written into the amendment, not merely promised.

The case against

Sales taxes hit lower incomes harder. A household spending every dollar it earns pays sales tax on nearly all of its income. One saving a third of its income doesn't. That's arithmetic, not ideology.

The Missouri Budget Project projects roughly 80% of households would pay more overall. (They lean left — weigh it accordingly, but the analysis is public.)

The scale. By one analysis, replacing the revenue through rate alone would take the state's general-revenue sales tax portion from 3% to 10.7% — or expand the taxable base dramatically instead.

"Revenue neutral" describes the state's books, not yours. A swap can be perfectly neutral for the treasury while moving thousands of dollars of burden between households.

Why this lands differently in Butler County

This is where statewide coverage stops being useful to us.

Measure	Figure
Butler County median household income	$47,245
Poplar Bluff median household income	$41,941
Poplar Bluff poverty rate	20.8%

A shift from taxing income to taxing spending lands hardest where households spend most of what they make. That describes Butler County more than it describes the St. Louis suburbs. The Missouri Budget Project's own example is a single parent earning $25,000 who pays no state income tax today — so gains nothing from repeal — but would pay more for groceries, gas, childcare and car repairs.

If you're retired, read this part twice

Missouri has fully exempted Social Security benefits from state income tax since January 1, 2024 (Senate Bill 190). If you live primarily on Social Security, you already pay no state income tax on it.

Eliminating the income tax gives you nothing further — while an expanded sales tax raises what you pay on nearly everything you buy. For that household, the swap is close to all cost and no benefit.

None of that makes the measure wrong. It makes it a different measure for us than for a two-earner household in Chesterfield — and no ad you see will mention that.

The catch — documented in court

The Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that both the ballot summary and the "fair ballot language" failed to inform voters of the measure's key impacts, and rewrote them. The Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.

Look at the yellow box again. The phrases "and authorize the expansion of sales and use taxes" and "Curtail constitutional limits on taxing goods and services" are on your ballot only because a court put them there. The legislature's version described phasing out the income tax and left the sales tax expansion out.

The part you'd most want to know is the part that had to be added by judicial order.

Follow the money

Side	Money	Where it came from
For	$9.6M raised $3.3M spent	Missouri Promise PAC. Top donors: $1.9M from Missouri Promise Inc., a Delaware nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, and $1.5M from Secure Missouri, a Missouri nonprofit formed last year.
Against	~$1.9M	Almost entirely a single $1,900,001 contribution from the Missouri Realtors PAC — who have their own stake, since taxing services could raise the cost of real estate transactions.

Be fair about this: both sides are big money with interests. The Realtors are not neutral civic actors. The difference is that you can see who the Realtors are — on the other side, the largest donor is a Delaware entity whose funders are legally shielded.

Questions to ask yourself

Am I comfortable voting yes on a tax plan whose details don't exist yet?
Do I earn enough that a lower income tax outweighs paying sales tax on services I currently don't?
If I'm on Social Security or a fixed income — what exactly do I gain here?
Am I comfortable that this can never be undone?

$ Local property tax question

East Carter County R-II — "Keeping Redbirds Strong"

Does this apply to you?

Only if you live in the East Carter County R-II School District — the portion of Butler County inside that district, which is based in Ellsinore. If you don't, this won't appear on your ballot at all.

What it does

Raises the district's operating tax levy from $2.7500 to $3.4300 per $100 of assessed valuation.

A $0.68 increase — about 25%
Stated purpose: attracting and retaining certified and support staff, and general operating expenses
Applies to Tax Year 2026 "and each year thereafter" — permanent, no expiration

What it would cost you

Property market value

Property type

$194

Added property tax per year · assessed value $28,500

Formula: (market value × assessment ratio ÷ 100) × 0.68. Check it against the assessed value on your own tax bill.

The case for

Rural districts genuinely struggle to compete on teacher pay, and staff turnover is a real cost to kids. An operating levy is the main tool a district has, and $2.75 sits at the lower end for Missouri districts.

The case against

It's permanent with no sunset clause, and 25% is a substantial jump in one step. "General operating expenses" is broad language — it doesn't commit the money to salaries specifically.

One honest gap

I could not find local reporting explaining the district's case — what the shortfall is, what happens if it fails, or how much would go to salaries versus other operating costs. That information exists; it just isn't published where a search finds it.

If this is on your ballot, call the district at 573-322-5625 and ask directly. That one phone call will tell you more than anything online.

And notice: "Keeping Redbirds Strong" is a name the district chose for its own proposition. It tells you nothing about $0.68. Districts are allowed to brand these. Read past the title.

4 Contested races out of thirteen

Where your vote decides something

Nine of the thirteen offices on the Republican ballot are unopposed — and of the ten county and judicial offices, exactly one is contested. In a county where the Republican primary is effectively the final election, those outcomes are already set before anybody votes. Your vote changes an outcome in exactly four races.

Contested — Republican ballot

U.S. Representative, 8th District Jason T. Smith · Gordon Heslop Smith is the incumbent and chairs House Ways & Means, with roughly $5 million cash on hand. Heslop is a retired accounting professor from Rolla who has raised about $70,600.

State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick · Gerald "Jerry" Wistrand Jr. Fitzpatrick is the incumbent.

State Representative, 152nd District Jeff Shawan · Ken Davis One of the two races where a few hundred Butler County votes genuinely decide it.

Recorder of Deeds Lisa Larmie · Travis Gowen The other one. Almost nothing has been written about either race — which is exactly why they're worth ten minutes of asking around before Tuesday.

Unopposed — already decided

Presiding Commissioner (Vince Lampe) · Circuit Clerk (Holly Lawson) · County Clerk (Donna Hillis) · Prosecuting Attorney (Ted Liszewski) · Collector of Revenue (Emily Parks) · Treasurer (Tammy Marler) · Circuit Judge, 36th Circuit (Kacey L. Proctor) · Associate Circuit Judge Div. 2 (Wade Pierce) · Associate Circuit Judge Div. 3 (John H. Shock). Some precincts vote the 150th District instead of the 152nd — Cameron Bunting Parker, unopposed.

Other ballots

Ballot	Races
Democratic	State Auditor: Quentin Wilson · Gregory Upchurch U.S. Rep 8th: Chris Reichard · Frank A. Barnitz State Rep 152nd: Corretta Bishop (unopposed)
Libertarian	State Auditor: Dustin Coffell U.S. Rep 8th: Rebecca Sharpe Lombard

✓ Reusable

How to read a ballot measure without getting played

This works on every Missouri ballot from here on.

Read the fine print under the title first. It tells you who wrote it. "Proposed by 103rd General Assembly" means politicians. "Second Extraordinary Session" means a special session. "Proposed by Article IV, Section 47(c)" means the constitution required it — a different animal entirely.
Read the fiscal note, then notice what it dodges. On a measure targeting two-thirds of the state budget, "unknown" is the entire story.
Ask whether a court rewrote the language. When judges rule the original wording didn't tell voters what a measure does, a court has already confirmed what you suspected. It's public record and it's searchable.
Ask what it exempts. Whatever a measure carves out is usually the point of it.
Follow the money — and be fair. Check both sides. If one side's largest donor is a shell entity that doesn't disclose, that's information. But the other side has interests too.
Ask if it can be undone. Reversibility is its own category of risk, separate from whether the policy is good.

☐ Before Tuesday

Things worth doing first

Decide which ballot you're requesting — county offices only appear on the Republican one.
Confirm your polling place.
If the school levy is on your ballot, call East Carter R-II at 573-322-5625 and ask what happens if it fails.
Ask around about Shawan vs. Davis, and Larmie vs. Gowen. Those two are decided locally and nobody's covering them.
Check your last receipt for your actual combined sales tax rate — that's the number Amendment 5 would move.
Bring a photo ID. Missouri requires one; without it you may cast a provisional ballot.

Missouri lets you bring notes into the booth. Take this with you.