Bloomington-Normal voters overwhelmingly supported a range of nonbinding advisory referenda during Tuesday's midterm election, signaling strong opinions against data centers, Bloomington's grocery tax and financial entanglement with Israel.
These measures are advisory, meaning the outcome only expresses voter intent. They do not mandate elected officials to act in any way. But they are a way to signal voter sentiment and inform local and state lawmakers and policy makers.
Bloomington voters saw three different questions regarding data centers, the city's 1% grocery tax and international weapons trade, while Normal Township voters saw a question regarding whether the state should repeal its anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] statute. The law prohibits state-funded public pension funds from investing in companies that participate in or support boycotts against Israel, Israeli entities, or territories controlled by Israel.
Residents voted yes on all four questions by a landslide.
City of Bloomington rejects grocery tax, data centers
A majority of voters said they want to see Bloomington implement a moratorium on hyperscale data centers, with 77.5% voting yes and 22.5% voting no.
Bloomington City Council passed a six-month pause on large data centers in May. A month later, more than 100 City of Bloomington Township residents unanimously voted to add a ballot question about making the moratorium permanent.
The city has since released a draft proposal introducing regulations for data center developers.
A majority of voters also advocated for repealing a citywide sales tax, which the Bloomington City Council approved last year to replace a state grocery tax that had lapsed.
City officials projected a $3 million revenue gap in losing the 1% sales tax. Normal passed its own 1% grocery tax the same month as Bloomington.
Apartheid states
Voters in Bloomington and Normal Township each had questions related to financial entanglement with foreign states.
In Bloomington, 88.5% of voters said the federal government should "ban the transfer of weapons to any country that is a dictatorship, apartheid state or major violator of human rights.”
The question was among a handful of similar moves seeking to weigh voter sentiment on U.S. involvement in Israel, though the advisory referendum in Bloomington does not explicitly mention the U.S. ally.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan global affairs think tank, the U.S. has provided over $16 billion in direct military aid to Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on near the Gaza Strip.
Normal Township voters honed in on a provision of Illinois' pension code which bans state-funded pension funds from investing in companies which boycott Israel. A similar question was approved in Peoria with about 70% support.
Two-thirds of voters in Normal Township said yes to the question, which was added to the ballot in April. A group of mostly college students supported the proposal during the annual township meeting, winning by a 10-vote margin.
Heyworth school board
McLean County voters also saw an advisory referendum question for the Heyworth School District, asking whether school board members could be relieved of residency requirements, shifting the board to an "at-large" model.
Of the 2,056 voters who responded, 64.5% voted in favor of the at-large model.
