Alongside the midterm elections, towns across ten states voted directly on whether data centers may be built near them, and the restriction side won almost everywhere. The Data Centers on the Ballot tracker counted 47 measures; of the 45 with a determined leader by midday on November 4, the restriction side led in 44, taking 72.8 percent of the combined vote. The only pro development win was in Harwood, North Dakota, where voters rejected an extra review step. Tallies differ between trackers and are unofficial pending certification.
Ohio carried the largest number of measures, at least 14 passed bans or restrictions by Datacenter Dynamics’ count. Granville, Hubbard, Piqua, Upper Sandusky and Urbana voted to ban data centers outright. Conneaut, Defiance, Oregon and Sunbury banned facilities drawing more than 25 megawatts; Sunbury’s threshold is the polite municipal form of blocking a reported 2 billion dollar Amazon site. Grove City voted to require a public vote on projects above 50 acres, 20 megawatts, or 500,000 gallons of water a day.
Elsewhere the pattern repeated at smaller scale. In Maine, North Berwick banned facilities of 25,000 square feet or more, while Peru, Wells, Eliot, Wiscasset and Sabattus adopted moratoria of up to 180 days. In Kansas, El Dorado banned high impact data center development for ten years and Emporia voted to ban facilities above 10 megawatts. Alhambra, California banned data centers in the city entirely, and Janesville, Wisconsin required a public vote on a data center at the former General Motors site if it costs more than 450 million dollars.
The political layer moved with the ballots: candidates running on anti data center pledges performed strongly in the midterms, and 26 gubernatorial candidates across 21 of the 36 states voting ran on promises of anti data center legislation. For developers, the practical effect is a siting map that now has to be drawn town by town, with megawatt caps and water thresholds written into local law.