Residents in Pataskala and Granville overwhelmingly supported charter amendments banning data centers over 25 megawatts from being built in their municipalities.
In Pataskala, 5,418 voters – or 73.62% – voted in support of the amendment, while 1,941 opposed it, according to preliminary results from the Licking County Board of Elections.
In Granville, 2,015 voters – or 82.45% – supported the measure, and 429 opposed it.
Read more: Two Licking County communities consider data center bans in November election
Conserve Ohio, a grassroots organization, led the effort to get issues on the ballot in charter cities and villages after earlier efforts fell short of having enough signatures for a statewide ballot issue in November to ban large data centers across the state.
Conserve Ohio attorney Nick Owens said that this election made it evident what the people want.
“It’s clear when these are put to a ballot,” Owens said. “We had 10 charter amendments on the ballot [statewide] tonight and all 10 passed.”
Organizers in Granville called the measure “largely symbolic,” as no data centers have been proposed for the village – but that’s not the case in Pataskala, where residents vocally opposed a proposal from Aligned Data Centers that would have put a 200-megawatt data center in the city’s corporate park. Pataskala City Council voted unanimously to reject the proposal in August, and Aligned Data Centers asked a judge to review the denial in September.
Read more: Pataskala residents cheer City Council vote to reject site plan for proposed large-scale data center
Licking County is home to at least 49 of the 125 data centers in central Ohio and 240 across the state, according to Data Center Map, an organization that tracks data centers around the world. Most of the Licking County data centers are in the New Albany area.
Leatrice Guttentag, one of the three people on the charter committee to start the petition in Pataskala, said she was at a polling location for six hours on Election Day, advocating for the ban.
Guttentag said she is “very, very excited for the city,” now that the amendment has passed.
“I’m very proud to be part of the city of Pataskala today,” she said. “I’ve always been, but I’m even more so today.”
Owens echoed her excitement, not only for Pataskala but for all 10 charter amendments that passed.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Owens about this election. “We believe in the people.”
He said Conserve Ohio started this process because “the politicians wouldn’t listen, they wouldn’t act, wouldn’t regulate or limit data centers.”
“Until the elected officials at the state level and federal level do their jobs by limiting data center growth, particularly ones that are right behind people’s yards or backyards that create immense amounts of pollution, we’re going to continue to put these on ballots to ban them at the local areas,” Owens said.
Guttentag said that she thinks Aligned Data Centers, the company with a current appeal for a data center zoning proposal that the city rejected, should step down and drop the appeal.
“And if they don’t drop out with grace, it just shows what kind of companies are trying to get into our cities,” said Guttentag, “and that they should listen to what the people’s needs and wants are.”
Residents in Heath and Johnstown will vote on similar charter amendments to ban data centers in special elections in 2027.
Ella Kitchens writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.