Oregon, Ohio voters just drew a hard line on the AI buildout — and they did it with their power bills in mind.

Voters in Oregon approved Issue 25 on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, prohibiting construction of data centers with aggregate demand or peak load above 25 megawatts. The measure passed with about 60% of the vote — roughly six in ten voters said yes. 13abc reported 60%, while the State Capital Lobbyist ballot tracker records 61% yes to 39% no.

It was not a one-off. It was part of a statewide sweep: Ohio voters rejected data-center development in all 21 local measures on the Nov. 3 ballot across 18 communities, and 11 of those were outright bans. Ohio accounted for 21 of 41 local data-center measures decided in 10 states on Nov. 3 — the broadest rebuke of the AI buildout anywhere in the country, as reported in “Ohio Voters Say No to Data Centers in All 21 Ballot Tests”.

The pocketbook angle is the story. Residents’ concerns are rising electric bills, water use, and grid costs being passed to households. The vote blocks large-scale data-center development in Oregon, a Lucas County suburb — a community that decided it would not trade cheaper power and water for a bigger footprint on its grid.

That concern is not abstract. Data centers are thirsty as well as power-hungry, which is why UT’s free Great Lakes Water Conference tackled the question of AI’s water use on Friday.

The fight is not over. Governor-elect Amy Acton campaigned on a conditional pause on new data-center construction until guardrails are in place. A statewide Ohio amendment to ban large data centers missed its July 1 signature deadline; backers are aiming for the November 2027 ballot.

Photo: BalticServers.com, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).