Data Center Limits Go to Voters in Three Kansas Cities as Courts Rule Citizen Initiatives Can Stay on the November Ballot
EL DORADO, Kan. — Voters in El Dorado in Butler County, Emporia in Lyon County and Ottawa in Franklin County will vote in the November general election on local measures limiting data centers, after court rulings kept the three citizen initiatives on the ballot. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal's October 26 report, the El Dorado and Emporia questions ask whether to prohibit 'high impact data centers' requiring a peak electrical load exceeding 10 megawatts or a daily water draw exceeding 100,000 gallons, and also to ban tier 2 and tier 3 battery energy storage systems; Ottawa's measure targets only 'utility-intensive data centers' with an electrical load of at least 25 megawatts.
The measures originated in citizen petitions, and beginning in August the cities and residents sued each other over whether the questions could appear on the ballot; in Ottawa's case, residents suing the city was precisely the path that kept its question.
Nationwide, at least 35 local measures related to data centers will be on November ballots across eight states — Kansas, California, Nevada, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Kansas is tied with Wisconsin for the third most; Ohio has the most with 21 and Illinois has 7. Four cities have already voted in 2026 to restrict data centers or to reject measures that supported them.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：数据中心机房（资料图）。照片：BalticServers.com，CC BY-SA 3.0，经维基共享资源。 / Inside a data center (file photo). Photo: BalticServers.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
