COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio voters delivered the loudest verdict in America's data-center backlash on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, voting to ban, cap or restrict large data centers in community after community across the state. Fortune reported that voters weighed 21 data-center ballot measures in 18 Ohio municipalities, most of them targeting 'high-impact' facilities drawing more than 25 megawatts of power, and the restriction side prevailed in every jurisdiction with reported results.

Source: Fortune, via AI Weekly, Nov 4, 2026

Ohio claimed about half of all data-center ballot measures in the United States during the midterms — 21 out of 41, according to Ballotpedia — Inc. reported. The state ranks fifth in the nation for active data centers, according to the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, and is home to more than 200 operational sites, with companies aspiring to invest about $40 billion in Ohio data centers by the end of the decade. Engadget, citing the tracker Data Centers on the Ballot, put Ohio's current count at 257 data centers and said facilities were on 20 Ohio ballots, with the vote to restrict either won or projected to win in every instance.

Source: Inc., Nov 4, 2026

Town by town: charter bans, megawatt caps and one repealed deal

The margins were rarely close. In Trenton, voters passed a charter ban by 80% to 20% to block an 18-building Amazon Web Services campus, Fortune reported. Sunbury's charter amendment banning facilities of 25 megawatts or more carried 100% of unofficial counts, and Amazon had proposed a $2 billion data-center campus in Sunbury that attracted community backlash, according to Data Centers on the Ballot reporting cited by Inc. Outright bans were also on the ballot in Urbana and Hubbard, where residents voted 76% and 77% respectively in favour of keeping data centers out, Engadget reported. Defiance voted to ban data centers over 25 megawatts, in measures similar to those in Granville, Sunbury, Pataskala, Piqua and Conneaut.

In the village of Ashville, voters repealed their own council's deal. Unofficial results with all four precincts reporting showed 1,468 votes to 330 — 81.65% to 18.35% — to repeal Resolution 06-2026, the village's agreement with data-center developer EdgeConneX, the Scioto Post reported. The deal covered two data-center buildings and an on-site natural gas power plant on about 195 acres, an investment of more than $100 million. In Wilmington, voters rejected rezoning for data centers across four separate referendums with roughly 80% of the vote, and in Perry more than 87% approved a financial-guarantee requirement for developers. A narrower measure giving Sprigg Township authority to regulate a forthcoming data center passed narrowly, Inc. reported.

Why voters turned: power bills first

'The opposition in Ohio mirrors what's happening in other states, so Ohio is not idiosyncratic. It's really a reflection of opposition across the country,' Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Inc. West said the measures broadly fall into two categories — bans, and restrictions through zoning and approval requirements — and that energy is the top concern: 'Energy is the top concern voters have about data centers, and they're worried in particular about electric rates. And in a number of states, electric rates have gone up, so voters are merging data center opposition with their worries about affordability.' Inc. also cited NBC exit polling finding that some 56% of voters called AI data centers a 'crucial' or 'major factor' in their congressional vote.

Polling taken before the vote pointed the same way. An ICAPP/SurveyUSA poll of 1,650 Ohio adults found 55% opposed data-center construction and 22% in favour, 65% opposed tax breaks for the industry, and 57% said they would support a proposed state constitutional amendment banning data centers of 25 megawatts or more, against 20% opposed and 21% undecided, Fortune reported. Nationally, Gallup put opposition at roughly 70% in May 2026, and an August 2026 Embold Research poll of 2,045 registered voters, reported by Heatmap, found 75% opposed a new data center near their home.

The national picture — and the single exception

Ohio was the centre of a national sweep, not an outlier. Trackers differ slightly in their counts — Ballotpedia counted 41 data-center measures across 10 states on November 3, while Data Centers on the Ballot counted 45 measures, of which 33 to restrict had passed by early Wednesday with another six projected to follow — but every tracker recorded the same direction: voters restricted data centers in all but one decided instance. The exception was Harwood, North Dakota, where voters declined a measure that would have required independent review and a public hearing before approving large data centers, according to Data Centers on the Ballot. Maine had eight related measures, Illinois seven, Kansas four, New Jersey two, and California, Florida, Nevada, North Dakota and Wisconsin one each, Inc. reported.

The issue also ran through candidate races. In Ohio's U.S. Senate race, Democrat Sherrod Brown made opposing data centers the centre of his platform, describing his Republican opponent as the industry's face, Engadget and Inc. reported. Fortune reported that Democratic governors who ran on moratorium platforms won in Texas, Georgia and Ohio, which together hold the bulk of planned U.S. data-center capacity through 2030. AI companies are already pushing to change the narrative around data centers in the wake of the elections, Inc. reported.

What happens next

The bans do not tear down what is already approved. 'If a company already has the construction permit and the permission to go ahead, those are going to continue,' West told Inc., adding that zoning and community-engagement measures 'don't ban future data centers, but they're putting restrictions on how the process operates.' Results remain unofficial until counties certify them. Still open: whether EdgeConneX seeks new terms or another site after the Ashville repeal, whether the proposed state constitutional amendment banning 25-megawatt-plus data centers — supported by 57% in the ICAPP/SurveyUSA poll — reaches a statewide ballot, and how Ohio's incoming state leadership responds to an industry that had planned roughly $40 billion of investment in the state by 2030.