Ohio Voters Reject Data Centers Across 21 Ballot Measures

Across 21 ballot measures in 18 Ohio municipalities on November 3, voters moved to block or restrict new data centers, Fortune reports. Thirteen communities voted on bans or restrictions covering facilities that draw more than 25 megawatts. In Trenton the ban passed 80% to 20%. In Perry, more than 87% of voters approved a financial guarantee requirement. Wilmington rejected rezoning across four separate referendums with roughly 80% of the vote. Sunbury's charter amendment banning 25-plus megawatt facilities carried 100% of unofficial counts. Ashville voted to block a campus already under construction.

The results sit on top of 125 local moratoriums already in place in a state that ranks fifth nationally for data center projects, with more than 200 operational sites and $40 billion in planned company investment through 2030.

A statewide ICAPP/SurveyUSA poll of 1,650 Ohio adults found 55% opposed data center construction and 22% in favor. 65% opposed tax breaks for the industry. And 57% said they would support a proposed state constitutional amendment banning 25-plus megawatt data centers, against 20% opposed and 21% undecided. Gallup put national opposition at roughly 70% in May 2026.

Keith Durkin, a sociology professor who directs Ohio Northern University's Institute for Civics and Public Policy, told Fortune the industry had been absent from the debate. "I've never seen any pro-data center advertising. I've never seen any op-eds from the industry. Everything we know is that humans don't like uncertainty from social behavioral science, and there's uncertainty around data centers."

Not entirely absent. Build American AI, a pro-buildout group, spent at least $2.54 million on Ohio television advertisements between September 7 and October 21, 2026. The tech-industry super PAC Leading the Future, funded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of a16z and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman, backed the push with ad claims of $40 billion in investment and more than 95,000 jobs. Senator-elect Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, campaigned to eliminate the tax breaks and require companies to pay for their own utilities; defeated Republican Senator Jon Husted had defended them.

Ben Green, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Ford School, framed the backlash as cross-partisan: "Democrats and Republicans might talk about that differently, but massive corporations coming in and forcing a community to deal with some type of project and not really giving a community any voice and operating in secrecy…"

This is our second Ohio data-center ballot story filed today.