Small town politicians are learning the hard way that when Americans say no to data centers, they mean it.

In Festus, Missouri — a sleepy town of roughly 12,700 residents — the backlash was so great that residents ousted half their city council after they approved a $6 billion data center development against the public will. According to Politico, the uproar caused by the data center approval led to a surge in voter turnout, the majority of whom expressed their discontent with the old councilors by voting in four anti-AI newcomers.

Take Rick Belleville, a 70-year old who’d never previously run for office, but who unseated Jim Tinnin in the city’s fourth ward. Tinnin, an eight-year city council veteran, had previously been elected in 2018. This time, he lost to the upstart Belleville by over 40 percentage points after voting to approve the data center buildout.

“I ran because I thought the city was not listening to people,” Belleville told Politico. “It’s really the way the deal was handled that led to this kind of uprising.”

Belleville is joined by three other fresh elects, who won as a result of their anti-data center attitude. Speaking to local media, Belleville promised to be more transparent than the previous representatives. He said that each new council member would have a cellphone with a publicly-listed phone number for speaking to constituents directly.

Though the remaining city council members aren’t up for election until next April, local media reports anti-data center voters are passing around petitions to recall them as soon as possible.

“We do not want to wait till next April,” anti-data center voter Mary Fakes said, adding that citizens hope to boot the mayor out as well. “This is a referendum against all of them based on their support of the data center.”

One thing’s for sure: the resounding defeat sends a clear message to elected officials across the country that public anger at data center developments has reached a boiling point.

More on data centers: Almost Half of US Data Centers That Were Supposed to Open This Year Slated to Be Canceled or Delayed