Ohio is one of the fastest-growing data center states in the country — 154 facilities operating, 27 under construction and 57 more planned. On Tuesday night, voters in town after town said: not here. Of 21 data center measures on ballots across 18 Ohio communities, at least 14 passed bans or strict restrictions, in several cases by landslide margins.
It was one of the clearest storylines of the night, alongside the full Ohio election results: the data center boom has run into organized local resistance, and the resistance is winning.
The towns that voted to ban or restrict data centers
Outright bans on new large data centers passed in community after community, including:
| Community | What voters approved |
|---|---|
| Granville | Ban — passed with about 82% of the vote |
| Trenton | Ban — about 80% in favour |
| Pataskala | Ban — about 74% in favour |
| Hubbard | Ban |
| Sunbury | Ban |
| Urbana | Ban |
| Defiance | Ban |
| Upper Sandusky | Ban |
| Piqua | Ban |
| Conneaut | Ban |
| Grove City | New restrictions — passed with about 55% |
Most of the measures draw the line at the same size: facilities above roughly 25 megawatts. Smaller server buildings are untouched — the target is the hyperscale campuses that have been arriving in rural and suburban Ohio.
What “25 megawatts” actually means
A megawatt is a measure of how much electricity a facility pulls at full load. As a rough rule of thumb, 1 MW can power around 800 homes, so a 25 MW data center uses about as much electricity as 20,000 homes — dropped into communities that in many cases have fewer homes than that. The biggest new campuses proposed in Ohio run to several hundred megawatts, more than a mid-sized city.
That scale is the heart of the local argument: residents worry about electricity prices as utilities build new generation and transmission for the facilities, about the huge volumes of water used for cooling, about farmland converted to windowless warehouses, and about tax abatements that mean a billion-dollar facility may contribute less to schools and services than residents expect.
The other side of the argument
Developers and some local officials counter that data centers bring construction jobs, a handful of well-paid permanent jobs, and major investment to communities that need a stronger tax base — and that Ohio’s central location, land and power grid make it a natural home for the industry. Where bans passed, expect that argument to move to courtrooms and to the statehouse: zoning fights over already-approved projects are likely, and at least one major project is already in limbo — the planned AWS facility near Trenton now looks uncertain after that community’s ban passed with about 80% support.
What happens next
Three things to watch:
- Challenges and carve-outs. Projects already approved or under construction are generally not stopped by new bans, so expect disputes over which pipeline projects count as approved.
- More ballots in 2026. Communities that watched neighbours vote this week are already discussing measures of their own.
- A statewide push. The group Conserve Ohio is preparing a proposed constitutional amendment for 2027 that would restrict large data centers across the whole state — taking the fight from individual townships to every Ohio voter.
However the next rounds go, Tuesday changed the map: any company planning a hyperscale campus in Ohio now has to win over the neighbours first. Official results for every measure are posted on the Ohio Secretary of State’s elections page as county boards certify them.
Results are unofficial until certified by county boards of elections.
