Follow-Up: Final Data-Center Ballot Results: 43 of 44 Moratorium Measures Pass, Texas Governor-Elect Pledges a Pause on New Construction
Final tallies from Election Day's data-center ballot measures emerged on November 5, showing an even more complete victory for the restriction side than early snapshots suggested. According to The Verge, 43 of the 44 data-center moratorium measures on Tuesday's ballots passed; Wes McEnany of the Future of Life Institute called the outcome a 'total repudiation' of the super intelligence (SI) industry.
Tallies differ slightly by tracker, but the conclusion is the same. Redbud Consulting, a ballot-tracking firm cited by Fast Company, counted 45 data-center propositions nationwide, 44 of them on the restrictive side. The sole exception was Harwood, North Dakota — a town of about 940 people where residents voted 325 to 105 against a charter amendment that would have given them a greater say over large projects, as a $3 billion data center is being built nearby. Ballotpedia's count of 41 general-election measures across 10 states matches the snapshot GSM published on November 4 from Trepp data, in which restrictive measures all passed and development-friendly measures were all rejected, with a few still pending at the time.
Many restrictions passed by wide margins: Granville, Ohio, approved a data-center ban with 82.45% of the vote, and Sunbury, Ohio, voted 78% to ban facilities drawing more than 25 megawatts, halting an Amazon-backed $2 billion project. Voters' concerns centered on data centers' electricity and water use and on tax incentives.
The political aftershocks are equally clear. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a pledge to pause new data-center construction until legislation addresses water, electricity, air and property-rights impacts, and winning candidates in states including Georgia and Ohio also proposed conditional freezes.
Related: Meta President Says Building New U.S. Data Centers Will Be Harder After the Midterms
(Source: The Verge)
Source: The Verge
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于犹他州 Bluffdale 的一座大型数据中心（资料图）。CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: A large data center in Bluffdale, Utah (file photo). CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
