Amish voting help recommendations from AmishPAC.com today? 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 a lot more info on AmishPAC.
Many Amish people consider voting a worldly activity. Their spiritual convictions, as well as the voter registration requirements typically deter them from going to the polls, leaving a small minority to participate in the electoral process. The Amish people are conservative. The need to preserve tradition while prioritizing individual freedom and human dignity highlight their culture’s conservative values. Though the Amish people are divided into various communities and observe different practices, they are grounded in traditional Christian precepts that represent conservative values.
Walters said PAC organizers expected about 20 or so volunteers to help drive members of the Amish community to the polls. More than 300 volunteers ultimately showed up, and scores of that group shuttled potential Amish voters to the polling locations throughout the day. “I don’t know one Amish that would vote Democrat,” the woman said. “It was just incredible,” Walters said. “We located every single registered voter in Lancaster County. In many cases we had volunteers knock on their doors two times (yesterday).”
The newspaper advertisements featured a photo of Trump and bullet points that read, “Trump has never been a politician or held elected office” and “never had a glass of alcohol.” According to its financial disclosure forms filed with the Federal Elections Commission in Oct., Amish PAC paid $9,392.14 to Lamar Outdoor Advertising for four billboards in July and August that went up in Ohio and Pennsylvania encouraging the Amish to vote for Donald Trump on Election Day.
“We knew it would be close from the beginning,” Walters said. “We knew the Amish were a sizeable enough amount of the population to provide the margin, should the election come down to the wire in Pennsylvania.” In Lancaster County, Trump defeated Clinton by a little more than 47,000 votes, a margin about 5,000 votes greater than Mitt Romney’ margin of victory in 2012 over President Barack Obama. The 137,000-plus votes Trump won in Lancaster County are among more than 2.9 million votes the president-elect secured in Pennsylvania. Election returns currently have Trump winning Pennsylvania by about 68,000 votes.
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. Read additional info at Amish voter project guides.
The votes of Amish people are important to politicians despite their small number compared to the rest of the country. Many politicians have tried to court the secluded sect to gain their votes during elections, meaning they know the Amish votes can help them win elections. Pennsylvania and Ohio, the states with the highest populations of Amish people, are fiercely contested swing states that usually determine the winning contender between Republicans and Democrats in presidential elections.