Voters in eight Ohio cities and villages approved charter amendments on Nov. 3 that ban data centers above 25 megawatts, and one developer has already dropped its plan. Every measure passed with at least 60 percent of the vote in unofficial results, according to our data center moratorium tracker.
The eight are Conneaut, Defiance, Granville, Oregon, Pataskala, Piqua, Sunbury, and Trenton. Oregon was the closest, at 60.7 percent. Granville was the widest, at 82.45 percent.
In Oregon, near Toledo, the vote ended a proposal from Vantage Data Centers. Vantage said in a statement that "the referendum outcome means this opportunity will not move forward as proposed," 13abc reported on Nov. 5.
The reach elsewhere is less clear. In Piqua, the city had already signed development and utility agreements for a Meta (META) project before the vote, and whether the ban applies to that project is unclear. In Pataskala, Aligned Data Centers asked a judge in September to review the city council's denial of its project, and no source says how the ban affects that case. In Trenton, the 18-building Amazon Web Services (AMZN) site sits outside city limits, where the ban does not apply, and local outlets disagree on whether it reaches a four-building data center already under construction inside the city. Granville organizers called their measure largely symbolic because no data center had been proposed in the village.
Each ban covers only land inside the city or village limits. None covers data centers of 25 megawatts or less.
A statewide version is also in the works. Conserve Ohio says it has gathered 130,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment that would ban data centers with a peak load above 25 megawatts across Ohio. The group is aiming for the Nov. 2, 2027 ballot. The amendment needs about 410,000 verified signatures from at least 44 of Ohio's 88 counties, the Journal-News reported. The group's count has not been verified, and its first attempt missed the 2026 ballot with about 70,000 signatures.
We covered the Nov. 3 results across the country, including the votes touching Amazon and Applied Digital, in a separate piece. The tracker logs state and local data center votes, including meetings still to come, along with the company and ticker each one touches where one is named.