US voters chose a limit in 40 of 41 data-center measures on Election Day

40 of 41 Nov. 3 data-center measures in which voters chose a limit

Ballotpedia reports that 41 local measures about data centers were on the November 3, 2026 ballot, out of at least 50 it has tracked this year across 13 states. As of November 4, voters had decided 47. In 46, a majority favored tighter limits, either by approving a restriction or by rejecting a measure that would have made a data center easier to approve. The exception was Harwood, North Dakota, where voters rejected extra review of industrial projects, including data centers, by 325 to 105. CNBC and Scientific American report the same Tuesday pattern: one win for the data-center side out of 41. Many questions were bans, short moratoriums, or advisory votes for local officials, not a national rule on AI models. Three measures remained on the calendar, two in Clarksville, Arkansas, and one in Mandan, North Dakota.

Alan's takeData centers have a big permission problem. Some coverage frames this week’s elections as an indictment of data centers alone, not AI itself, but public opinion of AI is falling. Nuclear power suffered a similar backlash after Three Mile Island in 1979. Public opinion of nuclear went from popular to pariah quickly, which curtailed construction for more than a generation. Ironically, nuclear power may become the tech that rescues AI construction. It was 1954 when the chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission predicted nuclear would make electricity ‘too cheap to meter.’ That promise would be handy today. Come to think of it, Microsoft is paying to restart Three Mile Island to power its data centers. We are coming full circle.