Top Amish voter help project recommendations with Amish PAC’s plain voter project? Our strategy for registering and turning out Amish voters: Amish PAC deploys old-fashioned newspaper ads and billboards throughout rural Pennsylvania and Ohio Amish country as part of a voter registration campaign specifically tailored to potential Amish and Mennonite voters. We also make a special hotline available to potential Amish voters who are interested in receiving more information about voting and requesting a registration form. It’s common for an Amishman to call and request registration forms for his wife and entire family. Find many more information on Amish PAC’s Plain Voter Project.
Only about 7% of Amish people vote. Traditionally, men and women in the tradition avoid politics, including voting in elections. However, for those that do vote, their Christian convictions tend to drive their participation in the democratic process. As of 2020, 31 U.S. states have significant Amish populations, with an estimated number of 344,670 Amish residents. Pennsylvania has the largest population of Amish people in the U.S., at approximately 81,500. Ohio is a close second at 78,200. Indiana is third at 59,305.
Pointing to farm issues, business taxes and regulation, religious liberty, Second Amendment rights and health care, Walters said the Amish were affected by the issues as much as other Americans. He added that he didn’t understand why the community didn’t vote in large numbers until studying the subject, which helped the PAC develop its strategy over a six-month span. The Amish PAC used “unconventional ways, old-fashioned ways, ways that (the Amish) are comfortable with,” including billboards, newspaper ads, sending information by mail and phone calls.
The Amish PAC focused on advertising in areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania with large Amish and Mennonite populations. “I think we really got the word out and we really stirred up some buzz in Amish communities in Holmes County, Ohio, as well. We really had a great presence,” said Walters in a phone interview Friday. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the Amish PAC spent $1,351 on advertising in the Holmes County Shopper and an additional $1,298 for The Budget. Both newspapers are geared toward the Amish and Mennonite communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
As the final vote tallies trickled in from Pennsylvania precincts, a man who worked to get the Amish community to the polls was still up watching returns in hopes his organization’s impact would push Donald Trump to the presidency. Ultimately, the Keystone State was not the final state to put Trump over the threshold, but Ben Walters, a co-founder of the Amish Political Action Committee, was happy. Though he hadn’t slept in 48 hours, Walters said, he planned to watch election returns until the nomination was secured or he dozed off — whichever came first.
He said the official report on how many Amish voters registered and then followed through with voting for Trump won’t be available until the spring, but he did say that at the close of voter registration Oct. 11, the GOP had registered 10,403 Amish voters compared to the Democrats, who registered 9,961 — a difference of just 442 people, said Walters. He said Pennsylvania is the state that put Trump over the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election. See even more info at Amish vote registering advices.
U.S politicians such as George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and William Griest are said to have courted the Amish people for their votes in elections. The efforts made by these politicians to appeal to the few hundred thousand Amish people sprinkled throughout the country is a testament to the importance of Amish votes to politicians. Though the Amish community doesn’t seem large enough to strongly sway the election result, they are primarily situated in states that constitute the “swing states.” For example, in recent years in Pennsylvania, presidential elections have been decided by less than 100,000 votes in the state.