{"id":257026,"date":"2026-05-27T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/poll-finds-michigan-voters-dont-want-data-centers-nearby\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:15:10","slug":"poll-finds-michigan-voters-dont-want-data-centers-nearby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/poll-finds-michigan-voters-dont-want-data-centers-nearby\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll Finds Michigan Voters Don\u2019t Want Data Centers Nearby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poll Finds Michigan Voters Don\u2019t Want Data Centers Nearby<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/poll-finds-michigan-voters-dont-want-data-centers-nearby<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-27 12:49:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.govtech.com<\/a><\/p>\n

(TNS) \u2014 Most\u00a0Michigan\u00a0voters don\u2019t want a\u00a0data center\u00a0built in their backyard. But that opposition softens with safeguards in place, like a guarantee that the power-hungry facilities won\u2019t hike electric rates.<\/p>\n

Those are some of the findings of\u00a0a new poll\u00a0released by the\u00a0Detroit\u00a0Regional Chamber\u00a0Tuesday, May 26, underscoring data centers\u2019 troubled public image in\u00a0Michigan\u00a0as several large-scale projects designed with artificial intelligence in mind advance.<\/p>\n

The Detroit Chamber backs the megaprojects as a means to support economic growth, and they promise to be a major theme as the group hosts the state\u2019s political and business elite for the annual\u00a0Mackinac Policy Conference\u00a0on\u00a0Mackinac Island\u00a0this week.<\/p>\n


The chamber-commissioned poll of 600 likely voters, released as the conference kicked off Tuesday, found initially only one in three respondents was open to allowing a data center to be built within 25 miles of their home.<\/p>\n

Some 55% were not, and 11% didn\u2019t offer a definitive answer.<\/p>\n

The voters were then quizzed on the importance of four separate sets of potential data center safeguards, with all receiving strong support.<\/p>\n

They included a requirement that the facilities use \u201cclosed loop\u201d systems that don\u2019t regularly draw large amounts of water to cool computer servers, a prohibition on government officials signing non-disclosure agreements with developers and a ban on additional tax breaks for the projects.<\/p>\n

The highest-rated of the guardrails was a guarantee that data centers \u2014 the largest of which can use more power than entire cities \u2014 pay their full costs for electricity.<\/p>\n

Some 87% of respondents rated this protection as important.<\/p>\n

With all of the safeguards in place,\u00a0Michigan\u00a0voters appear to view the facilities more favorably.<\/p>\n

In that case, 48.7% of respondents said they were open to a data center being built in their area, while 41.3% were not and 9.3% did not…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poll Finds Michigan Voters Don\u2019t Want Data Centers Nearby https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/poll-finds-michigan-voters-dont-want-data-centers-nearby Publish Date: 2026-05-27 12:49:00 Source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/erepublic.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/48c9cca\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/949x461+0+84\/resize\/1440x700!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ferepublic-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F43%2F34%2F601ec375481540483b3cdd447dcd%2Fshutterstock-125192411.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257030,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257026\/revisions\/257030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}