Of the 41 local data center measures on the ballot on 3 November, 25 are labelled citizen initiatives on Ballotpedia’s list, by our count, against 11 referred to voters by local officials and five referendums on decisions already taken. Of the 21 measures that would ban or pause data centers, 14 are citizen initiatives, also by our count.
The tally lands as Semafor reported on 2 November that “opposition to the AI buildout goes global”, and as a county board in Indiana approved a plan to pump groundwater from a Microsoft data center site into two local creeks, WNDU reported.
Business Pill · Grid Cost Allocation
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on grid cost allocation: who pays for the infrastructure new data centers need. It explains the general idea only and does not discuss these ballot measures or companies.
The key insight: By our count of Ballotpedia’s list, 25 of the 41 data center measures on the 3 November ballot are citizen initiatives, including 14 of the 21 that would ban or pause projects; only the 13 that would allow, back or uphold data centers include referendums on decisions already taken.
Ballotpedia, which tracks local ballot measures, says on its guide to local measures that they “can be citizen-initiated, such as a citizen-initiated charter amendment, or referred, such as a school district bond issue”. Its data center list gives each measure a type: Initiative, Referral or Referendum. The counts here are our reading of those labels for the 41 measures dated 3 November, in 10 states.
The ban-or-pause group splits 14 initiatives to seven referrals. The initiatives include El Dorado, Emporia and Ottawa in Kansas, where Ottawa’s measure would bar data centers using more than 25 megawatts. All four Maine measures, in North Berwick, Peru, Wells and Wiscasset, are referrals; three are moratoriums of 180 days or six months and one would bar data centers of 25,000 square feet or more.
All seven measures that would add rules or a review are initiatives, among them Grove City, Ohio, which would require voter approval for some large developments, and Perry, Ohio, which would require financial guarantees from hyperscale developers seeking special tax incentives, according to Ballotpedia’s descriptions.
The 13 measures that would allow, back or uphold data centers split three ways: four initiatives, four referrals and five referendums. The four initiatives are advisory measures in Madison County townships in Illinois asking officials to permit new data centers. The five referendums ask Ohio voters whether to uphold a decision already made: four rezonings in Wilmington and a term summary between the Village of Ashville and EdgeConneX.
Ohio holds 21 of the 41 measures, by our count, 14 of them initiatives. Ballotpedia lists at least 50 data center-related local measures in 13 states in 2026; it says six were decided as of 30 October, and that in each case a majority favored greater limits on development.
The 41 local data center-related measures on the 3 November 2026 ballot, by what a yes vote would do and by how each reached the ballot. Source: Ballotpedia, Data center-related ballot measures, 2026, read 2 November 2026. How a measure reached the ballot is Ballotpedia’s Type label; the grouping by what a yes vote would do is our reading of its descriptions. Our count.
What Semafor Reported
Semafor’s 2 November item tied the US vote to a wider pattern. In Texas, it wrote, Republican Governor Greg Abbott has moved to revise his earlier pro-data center policies, while his Democratic opponent has pledged a moratorium, which Semafor, citing SemiAnalysis, said could affect “about 29% of the net capacity additions planned nationally for 2028”.
Semafor also cited reporting by The Information that roughly 300-plus state and local moratoriums are threatening the US buildout. Outside the US, it wrote, the developer of a large data center in the Australian outback scrapped its construction timeline after the regulator extended its review, and Singapore-linked projects in Indonesia have met opposition from environmentally concerned locals.
A Groundwater Plan in Indiana
In St. Joseph County, Indiana, the county Drainage Board approved on Monday a plan to discharge groundwater from Microsoft’s planned data center development as part of a utility expansion supporting the project, WNDU reported. The process, known as dewatering, removes groundwater from a construction site when the water table is too high.
According to project applications cited by WNDU, the system could discharge at an estimated maximum rate of 200,000 gallons per hour from three wells operating at different times between mid-December and early April, into Willow Creek and Judy Creek. Drainage Board member Anthony Hazen said officials do not expect the discharge to cause flooding or creek overflow, and that the drilling company plans to install monitors around nearby wells to track water levels.
Residents told WNDU they were concerned about their private wells and water quality. “I understand, totally understand, the progress of data centers being built here in the country”, resident Jarrod Laymon said. “But it hurts that one is being built so close to homes.” WNDU’s report does not include a comment from Microsoft.
The Dollar Count
Data Center Watch, which tracks local opposition, counts at least 75 data center projects worth approximately $130 billion blocked or delayed by local opposition in the first quarter of 2026, and at least 45 projects worth nearly $68 billion in the second quarter. By our arithmetic, that is at least 120 projects and about $198 billion in the first half of the year. Its counts are of projects, and do not map onto the ballot measures above.
As we read the list, the push to limit data centers on this ballot comes mostly through petitions: every one of the seven measures that would add rules or a review is a citizen initiative.
As we read it, the allow side also uses the ballot: the five referendums ask Ohio voters whether to uphold rezonings and a term summary already agreed, and four Illinois townships put permit questions forward by initiative.
As we read the reports together, the disputes run through local bodies, from township ballots to a county drainage board in Indiana, while Semafor reports similar friction in Australia and Indonesia.
Ballotpedia, on the six data center measures decided as of 30 October
“In each case, a majority of voters favored greater limits on data center development”
Three Implications
FOR READERS FOLLOWING THE VOTE Ballotpedia lists 41 data center measures on 3 November in 10 states, 21 of them in Ohio by our count; results should be read from official returns.
FOR READERS TRACKING DEVELOPERS WNDU reported that Microsoft’s Indiana site needs groundwater pumped into two creeks before construction can begin, with monitors planned around nearby wells.
FOR READERS SIZING THE STAKES Data Center Watch counts about $198 billion of projects blocked or delayed in the first half of 2026, by our arithmetic of its two quarterly reports.
The framework puts it this way: “The supercycle has a ceiling now, and the ceiling is political.”
The framework makes that point about national governments and regulators. As we read it, the ballot list applies the same idea at the smallest scale: town and county votes on whether, and on what terms, data centers get built. The framework does not discuss these measures.
The grouping of measures by what a yes vote would do is our reading of Ballotpedia’s descriptions, and the citizen-initiative count is our reading of its Type labels; Ballotpedia’s list may change as results come in. Who gathered the signatures for each initiative is not shown in the list. The Texas capacity share, the moratorium count and the Australian and Indonesian cases are as reported by Semafor, which links to SemiAnalysis, The Information and other outlets’ reports; we have not checked them against those reports.
The total groundwater to be discharged in Indiana will depend on how long the pumps run, WNDU reported. This piece makes no forecast of any result.
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On Ballotpedia’s list, most of Tuesday’s 41 data center measures began as citizen initiatives: 25, by our count, including 14 of the 21 that would ban or pause projects. The vote comes as Semafor reports opposition spreading abroad and Data Center Watch counts about $198 billion of projects blocked or delayed in the first half of 2026, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. Measure counts, types and descriptions come from Ballotpedia’s data center ballot measure list, read on 2 November; the counts by type and by what a yes vote would do are our own reading of that list. Semafor and WNDU are cited from their 2 November reports, and project counts and values from Data Center Watch’s Q1 and Q2 2026 report pages. This is an election-week analysis: it reports what the sources say and makes no forecast of any result.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
