Voters in Sunbury, Ohio, passed a citizen-initiated city charter amendment that bars data centers with an aggregate monthly energy demand or peak load exceeding 25 megawatts, by 2,809 votes to 763, or 78.64% to 21.36%, according to the Delaware County Board of Elections’ unofficial canvass. Amazon Web Services had proposed a $2 billion data center campus in the city.
By our arithmetic, Yes led by 2,046 votes, about 3.7 to 1, and won in all six of the city’s precincts, with between 77.1% and 82.0%. Delaware Source reported the result at 04:36 UTC on 4 November, the earliest report we found. The results are unofficial until the board certifies them; its calendar lists the official canvass for 17 November.
Business Pill · Grid Cost Allocation
A short Business Engineer explainer on how grid costs are allocated between customers. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Sunbury, Amazon or the elections.
The key insight: By our arithmetic, Sunbury’s charter amendment barring data centers above 25 megawatts led by 2,046 votes, about 3.7 to 1, and won all six city precincts with between 77.1% and 82.0%, on the Delaware County Board of Elections’ unofficial canvass.
The board’s numbered canvass, run at 10:33 PM on election night, lists the contest as “City of Sunbury – Proposed Charter Amendment”. It shows 2,809 Yes and 763 No, with 68 under votes and no over votes.
Yes led in every precinct. Sunbury City D gave it the highest share, 369 to 81, or 82.0% by our arithmetic, and Sunbury City A the lowest, 713 to 212, or 77.1%. The six precincts’ Yes and No votes sum to the contest totals.
By our arithmetic, the six Sunbury precincts’ rows sum to 3,640 ballots cast out of 5,493 registered, about 66.3% turnout. Ballotpedia’s page for the measure shows the same 78.64% and notes that the results are unofficial until certified.
Yes share of votes on Sunbury’s data center charter amendment by precinct, from the Delaware County Board of Elections’ unofficial canvass of 3 November 2026. Shares are our arithmetic (Yes / (Yes + No)).
What the Amendment Does
The amendment adds Article XI, Section 11.05 to the Sunbury Charter under the heading “Prohibition of Construction of a Data Center”, 1808Delaware reported in July. Sunbury City Council voted unanimously that month to place the citizen-led amendment on the ballot, Delaware Source reported.
A local group, Big Walnut for Responsible Growth, led the signature collection. One of the petition’s sponsors, Trey Dockendorf, told Delaware Source: “The residents of Sunbury sent a strong message that we don’t want large-scale data centers near our homes”.
The line is drawn in electricity, not land or a named company. Facilities at or below 25 megawatts fall outside it. Larry Thode, who lives near Amazon’s proposed site, told 10TV: “We’re not banning them. We want to limit the size so we can control the damage.”
Amazon’s Sunbury Plan
AWS planned a $2 billion data center campus at 11793 Vans Valley Road in the Sunbury Business and Technology Park, DatacenterDynamics reported in November 2024. It reported that construction of the first 450,000 square foot building was expected to begin in January 2028 and be completed by December 2034.
In April 2026, Sunbury City Council voted unanimously to place a moratorium on the establishment of a data center in the city until 31 January 2027, WOSU reported.
After the vote, an Amazon spokesperson told 10TV: “We are disappointed with the result, but we have appreciated the opportunity to engage with the community on the benefits that this potential investment could bring to Sunbury. We’ll continue to engage communities early on as we build out this important infrastructure in Ohio and other states.”
Amazon’s own Ohio page, updated in December 2024, says that by 2030 its planned investment toward data center expansion in Ohio is “forecasted to surpass $23 billion”. The page as we read it does not name Sunbury, so we do not say whether the $2 billion sits inside that figure.
Where Sunbury Sits in the 41 Votes
Sunbury is on Ballotpedia’s list of 41 local data center measures dated 3 November, the list behind Data Center Limits Lead 40 of 41 Votes; Goldman Flags 45%. It is one of the 21 bans and pauses, all of which led in our recount of unofficial returns at 16:19 UTC on 4 November.
In Ohio, AP called the governor race for Amy Acton, whose campaign backs a “conditional moratorium on data centers”, as we reported in Hinojosa Wants Data Centers to Pay Costs; Queue Is 2.1x Peak. In May, Governor Mike DeWine said he had directed the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to pause new data center tax exemption requests, adding that “it is not a data center ban”.
OpenAI’s Chris Lehane wrote in a personal essay published on 4 November that “aspiring candidates could be asked to raise their hands to show support for a moratorium on data centers”, as covered in OpenAI’s Lehane Backs Data Centers as Limits Lead 40 of 41.
As we read the amendment, its line is drawn in electricity rather than land or a named company: it covers data centers whose aggregate monthly energy demand or peak load exceeds 25 megawatts.
As we read the record, the vote came on top of a council moratorium that runs to 31 January 2027, which WOSU reported in April 2026.
As we read Amazon’s statement, it does not say what the company plans for the Sunbury site; it says Amazon will continue to engage communities early on as it builds out infrastructure in Ohio and other states.
Amazon spokesperson, statement to 10TV, 4 November 2026
“We are disappointed with the result, but we have appreciated the opportunity to engage with the community on the benefits that this potential investment could bring to Sunbury.”
Three Implications
FOR DATA CENTER DEVELOPERS Sunbury is one of five measures among the 41 on Ballotpedia’s list that set the line at 25 megawatts, by our count; facilities below the line are outside it.
FOR AMAZON’S OHIO PLAN Amazon’s Ohio page says its planned investment toward data center expansion in the state is forecasted to surpass $23 billion by 2030; the page does not name Sunbury.
FOR READERS TRACKING RESULTS The figures are unofficial until the Delaware County board certifies them; its calendar lists the official canvass for 17 November.
The framework puts it this way: “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.”
As we read it, Sunbury’s voters wrote their limit in the same unit: the amendment counts megawatts, not acres or buildings. The framework predates this vote and does not discuss Sunbury, Amazon or any ballot measure.
All vote figures are unofficial; the board’s official canvass is scheduled for 17 November. We read the amendment’s heading and its 25-megawatt line as reported, not the full charter text, and we did not obtain the ballot language from the board.
Amazon’s statement does not say what it plans for the Sunbury site, and we make no forecast on the project. We have not established whether the $2 billion is part of Amazon’s Ohio forecast.
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Sunbury’s charter amendment barring data centers above 25 megawatts passed 2,809 to 763, 78.64%, on the Delaware County board’s unofficial canvass. By our arithmetic the margin is 2,046 votes and Yes won all six precincts. Amazon said it was disappointed with the result.
A note on sourcing. The vote figures are from the Delaware County Board of Elections’ unofficial numbered canvass, read on 4 November 2026; results are unofficial until the board certifies them. Amazon’s statement is as published by 10TV; the $2 billion plan is as reported by DatacenterDynamics and 10TV. The margin, ratio, precinct shares and turnout are our arithmetic. We did not contact Amazon, the city or the petition sponsors.
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.
