Voters in 18 Ohio municipalities and townships will decide the future of data centers in their communities this Election Day.
The deadline to file charter amendment petitions with Ohio’s city councils in time to make the Nov. 3 ballot passed Sept. 4. Registered voters in charter cities can file charter amendment petitions at any time, but if the next regular election is less than 60 days or more than 120 days away, a special election is held instead.
Nine petitions — in Conneaut, Defiance, Granville, Oregon, Pataskala, Piqua, Sunbury, Trenton, and Upper Sandusky — mirror a statewide effort to ban data centers that draw over 25 megawatts of energy per month. Organizers with Conserve Ohio are hoping the statewide petition will make the 2027 ballot after missing a signature deadline in July.
“Conserve Ohio is continuing to organize with many more communities across Ohio to enact local data center bans and to create local government structures that are by the people and for the people,” the group said in a statement Tuesday.
Piqua petition organizer Alisha Lange said she became politically engaged in 2023, when a battery plant approved by the city gave her and others living nearby long-term health issues. She pleaded with politicians who represented Piqua, including U.S. Rep. Mike Carey, with little success.
Now, she says those private meetings are a waste of time. After Meta announced plans for a data center in Piqua that would demand around 1,400 megawatts of power, she gathered enough signatures for a petition to recall Piqua’s mayor and two city commissioners, she said. Two more petitions filed Monday would change the city’s signature requirements for recalls to match state law and strike down a city agreement to power the data center.
“When we’re out getting signatures, people come up, and they all want to share something. They’re all upset,” she said. “It’s like some fellowship … Even though the data centers are driving us apart, the petitions are bringing us together.”
Ohio has the fourth-most operational data centers in the country, according to an analysisby Pew Research Center published in April, and tech giants and data center developers want to build dozens more across the state. 14 of the 18 communities with petitions filed for the November election have received formal proposals for new data center projects.
A Gallup poll in May found that over 70% of Americans oppose data center construction in their area, and a Bowling Green State University poll found that a similar percentage of Ohioans support a data center moratorium. Opponents list a variety of grievances, like rising utility bills, negative effects on the environment, or concerns about artificial intelligence.
Different petitions tackle the issue in different ways. While gathering signatures for the 25-megawatt petition, many Piqua residents told Lange they would rather ban data centers entirely. That became another petition, and it now has enough signatures for a special election, she said.
Urbana voters will decide on a charter amendment to ban data centers that draw over 7.5 megawatts of power, and Hubbard is the only Ohio city that will vote on a full banthis November.
Pleasant Township resident Jen Belt lives within two miles of a proposed data center in Grove City. She was part of a petition drive to make any new heavy industrial project in Grove City — not just data centers — subject to a citywide vote.
While she signed the statewide Conserve Ohio petition, Belt said Grove City organizers decided against advocating for a local data center ban because they were worried about litigation.
“If the state would just ban these hyperscale facilities in general, that would be awesome,” she said. “ … I just feel like they need to sell it to us and come here responsibly.”
Two Adams County townships located on the Ohio River will vote on zoning plans meant to preserve their “rural and agricultural character” in response to a potential data center that would use more than 20 times as much power as the county itself.
Two counties over, Wilmington residents proposed a 33-page zoning ordinance after Amazon Web Services announced plans for a $4 billion data center on land next to a local subdivision.
Residents have filed multiple federal lawsuits over the city’s handling of the project, and four referendums on Wilmington’s November ballot would strike down zoning ordinances passed by the city.
The city’s alternative zoning ordinance is the fourth ballot measure related to data centers to go in front of the Ohio Supreme Court in the last month.
A referendum against a proposed data center in Ashville and a 25-megawatt data center ban in Trenton will be on the general election ballot after legal battles, and a trio of Sidney petitions related to data centers will likely become a special election after the state’s highest court ruled that the city clerk illegally blocked them.
The Clinton County Board of Elections rejected Wilmington residents’ petition to put the zoning ordinance on the ballot after determining that it would create new ways for residents to sue, which would go beyond Wilmington’s municipal power.
Wilmington resident Quintin Koger Kidd, a longtime IT professional who helped write the ordinance, said the disputed clause only restates existing state and local law. If the court rules against residents in their lawsuit challenging the board of elections’ decision, Koger Kidd said he plans to circulate new petitions without the clause.
He does not support banning data centers entirely, adding that he sees it as a land use issue.
“Data centers provide a useful service, but they have impacts on our community,” he said. “How do we minimize the negative impacts on our community while accruing the benefits to our community?”
In Grove City, Belt said voters could approve a data center if the developer makes a strong enough case.
“The point is that it shouldn’t be up to seven people sitting on a board,” she said. “People are losing their trust in their governments, locally and nationally. They’re seeing large corporations attempt to bully and strongarm their county and municipal governments, and they’re just fed up with it.”
Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.