We aren’t sure what to make of a poll sponsored by a pro-data center group that finds more than 80 percent of South Carolinians don’t want data centers built near their homes. We’d have similar questions about a similar poll sponsored by environmental groups.

For instance, were the questions crafted to evoke answers the group wanted? Was the sample truly random, or skewed so it’s an unreliable measure of public opinion? Why would a group that supports data centers pay for — and publicize — a poll that finds most S.C. residents don’t want to live anywhere near them?

Whatever the methods or the motivation, though, the results are almost ridiculously unsurprising.

Controversies about the large computing centers have sprouted up in every corner of this state. Many people are suspicious they will drain massive amounts of their drinking water, or that we’ll end up paying higher electric bills as a result.

Not to mention that the primary function of data centers is to expand the capacity of artificial intelligence at a time when some believe AI will not find a cure for cancer, but rather new and creative ways to kill us.

Some of those concerns may be reasonable, and others less so. Similarly, our nation clearly needs data centers, but that doesn’t mean they have to locate in South Carolina, much less that we have to entice them here.

The poll’s sponsor, the S.C. chapter of the American Infrastructure Alliance, says it’s trying to elevate the debate, so state lawmakers can’t continue to ignore the questions — or regulations that would give data centers clear rules to follow. People involved with the poll told The Post and Courier’s Nick Reynolds that they want to make people comfortable with data centers if “legal guardrails” are in place.

Although we’re not interested in making people comfortable or uncomfortable with data centers, we do agree that our state needs to regulate them.

The most important regulations should involve government incentives: State and local governments should not offer any incentives to data centers; in addition to concerns about their use of our water, these centers don’t employ enough people to qualify for the usual tax breaks. Yet once again this year, after approving a ban on state government paying data centers to locate here, the S.C. Senate caved to the data center cheerleaders in the House and abandoned that modest restriction.

The Commerce Department says it doesn’t offer discretionary incentives to data centers, although state law says qualifying data centers may be exempt from some sales taxes. That not only sounds like incentives, it sounds like advertising for the business.

Most incentives come from counties in the form of property tax reductions. That would be solely the business of those counties if we knew that data centers weren’t drinking up water that crosses county lines and prompting utilities to build more power capacity that regular ratepayers would end up paying for with higher rates. Power companies insist that wouldn’t be the case, but we won’t know for sure until there’s a law in place to prohibit it.

We also need a law to prevent data centers in environmentally sensitive areas, such as the doorstep of the ACE Basin. Colleton County officials said this week they have effectively prohibited an effort to build a data center there. Of course we’ve heard such promises before that didn’t materialize, which underscores the need for a state prohibition.

If the Legislature would address any of these concerns, this poll says support would grow to 62 percent. And appropriately so, as the big problems with data centers isn’t their existence but the rules — or lack of rules — under which our state allows them to operate.

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