The group of volunteers trying to get a constitutional ban on data centers that consume more than 25 megawatts of power monthly before Ohio voters this fall has released its first signature total. It’s unlikely all the signatures collected so far are valid, and the number is far short of the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed, but the group is pleased so far.
The group Ohio Residents for Responsible Development has gathered 25,000 signatures in five weeks. But organizer Austin Baurichter said that’s a preliminary total with more signatures not yet counted.
"If you go on the website, you can see a little meter that shows the progress and I'm excited to watch it tick up," Baurichter said in an interview. "Our belief is that there's most likely quite a bit more out there because of how we made this open access. There's a lot of people that just print it out and take it to their neighbors and get some signatures."
The group has been working through the website ConserveOhio.com to set up signing stations and communicate.
They need 413,487 valid signatures in half of Ohio’s counties by July 1 to make the fall ballot. Recent similar petition drives have turned in more than 700,000 signatures to account for invalid ones.
"It's 25,000, which is like 6%, and we got like a month and a half before July 1," Baurichter said. "I'm proud of that. This thing didn't even exist 75 days ago. So I'm super proud of that."
But he said he's aware some who oppose the amendment effort might look at that number and be unimpressed.
"I know that there are groups and developers and stakeholders that are probably gonna look at that and, you know, sleep a little better tonight and laugh and feel like we're unserious," Baurichter said. "Frankly, I hope they do. I hope that they see that and think that 'they don't have anything', that this isn't gonna go anywhere. But I think that would be absolutely wrong."
But Baurichter said if they don’t make it this year, next year’s ballot is a possibility.
