OPINION: Ohio Supreme Court Affirms Citizens’ Right To Vote Against Data Center Project, Affirming Constitutional

Editor’s note: Data centers, such as the one being considered in Ashville, have become a controversial issue.  These server farms, as they are called, consume massive amounts of electricity and water, along with taking away land that can be used for other things, including public parks and greenspace, both of which have been shown to have positive effects on children’s cognitive and emotional development, along with being healthier for everyone, when it is available in local communities.  Data centers also can make noise, and they also have been using methane gas and other types of generators that create large amounts of a more damaging and permanent pollution than carbon dioxide that includes ozone damage, along with heat and other wasteful electricity and water consumption practices.  This can drain local shared resources, making less available to the community overall.  The negative health effects of these data centers are unknown, but living near one is likely unhealthy, and once they are built, surrounding property values will not increase.  Some residents find they cannot sell their homes at all.  They also have yet to determine a way for AI to turn a profit, as many of them cost more to provide than they thus far generate in profits.  Tax breaks offered by states for these types of developments are complicating the matter. New York is considering a moratorium on their construction, along with several other states.  New York thus far has eight operating data centers Upstate. The data centers are also often speculative, meaning they are built by developers without a guarantee that they will become data centers used by a major company.  If this becomes the next bubble, like the dot com bubble of the 90s, then these operations will never run.  They also need very few employees, and don’t really employ local residents.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met with residents of Georgia who feel pressured to sell their properties in order to make space for a large data center planned for their area.  Their properties need to be demolished to make way for the transmission power line footprints and pathways that will power the campus. CBS News said: “Utility giant Georgia Power is planning to build a new transmission line to in part help power new data centers. It estimates 70-80% of the power on the new line will help serve data centers and the remaining 20-30% of power will serve the state’s growing residential and commercial demand.” Other locations  have experienced drinking water that has become non-potable (undrinkable and toxic) when a data center was built in their area.  

Ohio Supreme Court Vindicates Ashville Residents’ Right to Vote on EdgeConneX Data Center Deal

Columbus, Ohio — In a landmark decision issued today, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled decisively in favor of Ashville residents who sought to exercise their constitutional right to a referendum on a controversial data center development deal between the Village of Ashville and EdgeConneX, Inc. The Court granted a peremptory writ of mandamus ordering Ashville Fiscal Officer April Grube to certify the sufficiency and validity of the residents’ referendum petition to the Pickaway County Board of Elections for placement on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot.

DannLaw represented amicus curiae Data Center Resistance in support of the residents challenging the Village’s refusal to honor the democratic process.

“This ruling is a powerful affirmation that local officials cannot obstruct the will of the people,” said Marc E. Dann, Managing Partner of DannLaw. “The Ohio Supreme Court has made clear that emergency declarations cannot be used as a shield to deny citizens their fundamental right to vote on matters affecting their communities.”

Ed FitzGerald the President and CEO of Data Center Resistance said, “This is just the beginning of Data Center Resistance’s efforts to mobilize and empower members of local communities throughout the United States who want to have a say in whether and how Data Centers may be established in their communities and who will pay the bill for profitable AI businesses”

Background

On April 6, 2026, Ashville’s village council adopted Resolution No. 06-2026, approving a development-and-supply agreement term summary with EdgeConneX for the construction of two single-story data center buildings and a natural-gas power-generating facility on property in the village. The village council declared the resolution an emergency measure and passed it by a vote of five to one.

In response, Ashville residents collected signatures on a referendum petition challenging the resolution. The Pickaway County Board of Elections verified 669 signatures — far exceeding the statutory threshold required to place the referendum on the ballot. Despite this, Fiscal Officer Grube refused to certify the petition, claiming the resolution was both an emergency measure and an administrative action not subject to referendum.

The residents were forced to file a writ of mandamus in the Ohio Supreme Court just to vindicate their right to vote.

The Court’s Ruling

In State ex rel. McNamara-Smith v. Grube, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3035, the Supreme Court ruled on two critical grounds:

First, the Court held that the village council’s emergency declaration was legally deficient. The resolution’s stated reasons — boilerplate language about “preservation of the public peace, health, and safety” and the need to “accept these terms as soon as possible so that this project is not unnecessarily delayed” — were “purely conclusory” and failed to apprise voters of any specific reasons for the emergency designation. The Court emphasized that the resolution contained even less detail than the emergency clause found insufficient in Hasselbach v. Sandusky Cty. Bd. of Elections (2019).

Second, the Court held that the Fiscal Officer lacked the discretionary authority to determine whether the resolution was an administrative action. Citing established precedent, the Court reaffirmed that “city auditors and village clerks exceed their ministerial and limited discretionary authority under the pertinent statutes by deciding whether ordinances are legislative or administrative for purposes of determining whether they are subject to initiative and referendum”. Whether an action is legislative or administrative is a judicial question — not one for a municipal fiscal officer to resolve.

The decision was joined by Chief Justice Kennedy and Justices Fischer, DeWine, Deters, Hawkins, and Shanahan.

A Growing Pattern

Today’s ruling arrives at a critical moment for Ohio communities confronting large-scale data center development. As DannLaw has argued, a disturbing playbook has emerged across the state: local officials pass resolutions as sham emergencies to circumvent the referendum power, redefine statutory terms to inflate signature thresholds, and exhaust citizens’ resources with litigation they cannot afford.

In the City of Trenton, a similar battle is underway. Residents gathered 464 signatures — nearly three times the 128 required — to amend their city charter to prohibit data center construction, a direct exercise of home rule authority under Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution. But the City Council passed an emergency ordinance redefining “ten percent of the electors” to inflate the threshold from 128 to 820, contradicting over fifty years of Ohio Supreme Court precedent. That case (No. 2026-1035) remains pending before the Supreme Court.

“Ohio can and should be part of the AI future,” said Dann. “But development must happen with the consent of the governed — not by gutting the constitutional mechanisms that exist precisely to check concentrated power”.

Below, find this organization’s amicus brief (friend of the court letter) in support of the Ohio town’s residents having the right to vote on a referendum about the proposed construction of a data center:

Data Center Resistance Files Amicus Brief Defending Ohio Citizens’ Constitutional Right to Referendum in Ashville Data Center Dispute

Nonprofit urges Ohio Supreme Court to protect local democracy as hyperscale data center projects proliferate across the state

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Data Center Resistance, an Ohio nonprofit corporation dedicated to protecting citizens’ ability to participate in governmental decisions involving large-scale data center development, today announced the filing of an amicus curiae brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in State of Ohio ex rel. Laura McNamara Smith, et al. v. April Grube, Case No. 2026-0906. The brief opposes the respondent’s motion to dismiss and supports the relators, who are seeking to preserve a citizen-led referendum on a proposed hyperscale data center campus in the Village of Ashville.

A Fight Over Local Democracy

At the heart of the case is whether the people of Ashville retain their constitutional right to vote on a land-use decision that could permanently reshape their community. After the Village Council approved a resolution authorizing the data center project, Ashville residents invoked the referendum process reserved to municipal electors under Article II of the Ohio Constitution, circulating petitions and collecting substantially more valid signatures than state law requires. Village officials nevertheless refused to certify the petition, asserting that the resolution qualified as an emergency measure exempt from referendum.

Data Center Resistance’s brief argues that this dispute extends far beyond Ashville. Dozens of villages and cities across Ohio are currently considering similar hyperscale data center proposals, and the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling will help define the practical scope of the state’s constitutional referendum power for communities statewide. As the brief states, the Ohio Constitution begins with the principle that “all political power is inherent in the people,” and it expressly reserves to municipal electors the power of referendum.

“The issue before the Court is not whether the proposed data center should ultimately be built,” the brief explains. “The issue is whether Ohio’s Constitution permits the citizens of Ashville to exercise the democratic authority the Constitution expressly reserves to them”.

The Risks Posed by Hyperscale Data Centers

The brief details why large-scale data center projects warrant especially careful public scrutiny and why the referendum process matters so much in this context. Citing recent Gallup polling, the brief notes that roughly 70 percent of Americans oppose data center construction in their local area, with opposition levels remaining nearly uniform across Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. That bipartisan concern, the brief argues, reflects legitimate uncertainty about the long-term impact of these facilities on local resources, infrastructure, and community character.

The brief points to federal data underscoring the scale of the issue. The U.S. Department of Energy reported that data center electricity consumption has roughly tripled over the past decade, reaching approximately 4.4 percent of total U.S. electricity use in 2023, with consumption projected to climb to between 6.7 and 12 percent by 2028. More recent estimates from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory raised that projection further, to between 9.5 and 15.3 percent of total U.S. electricity use by 2030. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has likewise identified energy consumption, water use, environmental effects, and transparency surrounding AI-driven data center expansion as significant public policy issues warranting further study.

The brief emphasizes that these figures do not suggest every proposed data center will produce identical local effects, but they do show that such projects differ materially from ordinary commercial development and routinely require significant public decisions concerning infrastructure, utilities, land use, and long-term community planning.

Why the Referendum Power Must Remain Meaningful

The brief traces the legal foundation for the citizens’ referendum right, noting that Ohio courts have long held that the constitutional right to referendum is of paramount importance and applies to every law passed in the state, and that provisions protecting municipal referendum should be liberally construed in favor of preserving that power. The brief describes the referendum as “the embodiment of true democracy in our republican form of government,” serving as a means for direct political participation that gives citizens the final say, akin to a veto, over the enactments of representative bodies.

The brief further warns that municipalities’ increasingly frequent use of “emergency” declarations to bypass the standard 30-day waiting period before an ordinance takes effect threatens to hollow out the referendum right altogether. Because Ohio law limits emergency declarations to measures necessary for the immediate preservation of public peace, health, or safety, the brief argues that such declarations should be viewed with skepticism absent a genuine, well-documented emergency. In this case, the brief contends, the Village’s stated justification—avoiding delay—amounts to nothing more than a tautological attempt to sidestep the referendum process itself.

Amicus’s Position

Data Center Resistance’s brief makes clear that it does not ask the Ohio Supreme Court to decide whether the Ashville data center project is ultimately beneficial or harmful, nor to weigh the competing economic, environmental, or policy considerations at stake. Instead, the organization urges the Court to preserve the constitutional right of Ohio citizens to vote on legislative decisions that permanently alter their communities, absent a genuine emergency.

“The Village Council’s declaration of an emergency was an improper attempt to circumvent the people’s reserved referendum power,” the brief concludes, calling the maneuver “a patently anti-democratic effort” that should not be sanctioned by the Court. Data Center Resistance has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to overrule the respondent’s motion to dismiss and allow the underlying mandamus action to proceed.

About Data Center Resistance

Data Center Resistance is an Ohio nonprofit corporation dedicated to protecting the ability of citizens to participate in governmental decisions involving large-scale data center development, with a particular focus on advocating for transparency and accountability in such projects.

Please see datacenterresistance.org for more Data Center Resistance information.

See the brief here: Fitzgerald^J Ed 2026 07 27 Amicus Brief FINAL

Data Center Resistance is a coalition of Ohio residents and community organizations advocating for the rights of local communities to have a meaningful voice in decisions about large-scale data center development. The organization participated as amicus curiae in McNamara-Smith v. Grube, filing a memorandum in opposition to Grube’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.

About DannLaw

DannLaw is an Ohio-based law firm committed to protecting the constitutional rights of Ohio citizens and communities. In McNamara-Smith v. Grube, DannLaw attorneys Marc E. Dann, Jeffrey A. Crossman, and Andrew M. Engel represented Data Center Resistance.

Banner Image: Data center construction. Image Credit – Concept Photo Licensed by CC.