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November 8, 2026, at 7:30 a.m. Central time.
The small prairie community of Harwood, North Dakota, has become the rare American town to welcome giant artificial intelligence infrastructure, voting decisively against strict oversight on heavy industrial development and clearing the way for a $3 billion, 1.8-million-square-foot data center campus, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
By a margin of 325 to 105—a roughly 3-to-1 landslide—voters in the town of about 845 residents north of Fargo rejected Measure 2 on Election Day. The local ballot measure would have required mandatory independent environmental, noise, and water assessments and binding public hearings before the city could approve heavy industrial zoning.
The decisive outcome hands a major victory to developer Applied Digital Corp., which is building the colossal facility with enterprise cloud giant Oracle as an anchor customer, according to corporate filings and regional economic development records.
Local petition meets the promise of tax windfalls
The grassroots opposition campaign was organized by local software engineer Michael Swartz, who gathered signatures to put Measure 2 on the ballot after residents voiced concern about the scale of the facility, high-voltage substations, and round-the-clock cooling equipment humming over flat farmland.
Opponents cautioned that massive power consumption could drive up regional utility rates and alter Harwood’s tight-knit rural character, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported.
Supporters, however, framed the project as a once-in-a-generation economic catalyst. Civic leaders and farmers pointed to tens of millions of dollars in projected municipal tax revenue that will pave rural roads, modernize water distribution, and fund local schools without raising property taxes on homeowners.
Bucking a nationwide backlash against AI server farms
Harwood’s vote stands in stark contrast to political trends across the United States. In Tuesday's elections, more than 40 municipal and county ballot initiatives across Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan enacted moratoriums or strict limitations on data centers amid mounting public fury over grid strain, water consumption, and aesthetic disruption.
In Scotland and the Netherlands, protests and legislative reviews have similarly targeted AI server campuses, highlighting how power-hungry neural networks are colliding with local resource limits worldwide.
Harwood civic leaders credited North Dakota's expansive wind energy resources, proximity to high-capacity transmission lines, and open agricultural topography for making the town uniquely suited to host the compute power required for next-generation frontier models.
Tech policy discussion on X
Technology policy analysts and reporters highlighted Harwood's vote on X as a pivotal case study in rural municipal tax incentives versus the nationwide backlash against AI utility demands.
Follow @washingtonpost on X for technology investigations, infrastructure reporting, and national business analysis.
Tech policy discussion on X
Technology policy analysts and reporters highlighted Harwood's vote on X as a pivotal case study in rural municipal tax incentives versus the nationwide backlash against AI utility demands.
Follow @washingtonpost on X for technology investigations, infrastructure reporting, and national business analysis.