Voters Put Data Centres on Notice

US voters used ballot measures in the midterm elections to reject or limit data-centre development in nearly every contest tracked nationwide, turning a local planning fight into a measurable political result.

According to Data Centers on the Ballot, an election-monitoring project run by Redbud Consulting and cited by Al Jazeera, 41 ballot measures tied to data centres went before voters across the country. All but one were on track to end with voters rejecting development or tightening limits. Two counts were still incomplete, but analysts expected both to produce majorities against new projects or in favour of stronger restrictions.

The exception was Harwood, North Dakota, where voters defeated a measure that would have required independent reviews of large industrial projects, including data centres, before construction.

That matters because it moves the issue out of speeches and into decisions with legal effect. A candidate can campaign against the infrastructure boom. A ballot measure can slow, condition or block it.

The argument reaching voters was not especially ideological. Al Jazeera reported a September poll finding support for limiting new data centres at 70 percent among Democrats and 57 percent among Republicans. The pressure points were practical: electricity prices, water use and distrust of promises about jobs.

A 2026 working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, cited by Al Jazeera, estimated that wholesale electricity prices had risen by 6.9 percent as a result of data centres as of the previous year. That does not prove each local bill rose for the same reason. It does help explain why a warehouse full of servers has become easier to campaign against than to approve.

The scale is part of the problem for officials trying to wave objections away. Pew estimated in April that the United States already had 3,000 data centres, with more than 1,500 in progress. The buildout has been pushed by AI demand, but the permits, land use fights and utility strain land in counties and towns.

Candidates also treated the issue as electorally useful. Al Jazeera cited Ohio and Texas races where Democrats attacked pro-expansion positions or called for stricter rules and won. That does not establish a single cause for those victories. It does show that data-centre politics has moved beyond zoning meetings and into statewide campaigns.

The cleaner reading is narrower and more durable: where voters were given a direct choice, they generally chose friction.