Data Centres Lost Almost Every Local Ballot on Election Day

Data Centres Lost Almost Every Local Ballot on Election Day

In the local votes held on 3 November, measures involving data centres lost almost everywhere. This chart counts 47 of them, with 46 going against the industry.

Different trackers reach different totals. One counts 40 of 41 measures favouring restrictions; another counts 44 passed with two more leading. The differences come down to whether advisory votes are included and how much of the count was finished, and the chart itself is labelled as unofficial results as of 6 November.

Every version lands in the same place, though: Harwood, North Dakota was the only place that voted in favour.

The margins matter more than the win-loss record. Most measures drew between 60% and 88% against, and almost none sit close to the 50% line. Ohio alone contributed more than a dozen, all of them past a majority. That distribution does not look like a turnout push. It looks like an existing consensus that finally appeared on a ballot.

One caveat is worth adding. Local ballots mostly do not touch the real bottlenecks. Grid interconnection queues and tax abatements sit with state governments and utility regulators, and a township vote will not stop a campus on its own. What it probably changes is the price: the community payments, water terms and grid-cost sharing developers negotiate next will cost more than last year's.

Source: tallies from Redbud Consulting and a data-centre ballot tracker, cross-checked against independent counts from Ballotpedia, Route Fifty and Stateline (Image: @acemaxx)