Amish vote registering recommendations by Amish PAC’s plain voter project in 2022? Getting out the Amish vote takes time. They have not historically been civically engaged to the same extent as most non-Amish. But their views are slowly beginning to change. And it is our hope that 2022 will be a record-setting year for Amish voter registration and turnout! Amish PAC is the first PAC dedicated to registering and turning out Amish voters. The purpose of Amish PAC’s Plain Voter Project is to register Amish voters in the key swing states of Ohio & Pennsylvania. We reach and register new Amish voters by using advertising. Find many more info at 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.
The Amish and Mennonites are believed to be Republican voters because their beliefs align most closely with the policies of the Republican party, according to one Mennonite farmer in Rainsboro, Ohio, who said he does not vote. “I would probably vote Republican if I did vote because of the values of the times,” said the Rainsboro farmer in an interview this summer, who preferred not to be named in the newspaper. The Republican’s Amish PAC Plain Voters Project’s purpose was “to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by turning out a deeply conservative and often forgotten block of voters” and was “specifically tailored to potential Amish and Mennonite voters,” according to the Amish PAC website. Find extra information at Amish voter help project recommendations.
The Amish believe in a simple lifestyle and try to be as self-sufficient as possible through subsistence farming and producing sellable products. To the Amish people, staying separate from the world includes not accepting aid from the government or using public grids. They hold traditional ideals that are family and community-centered and tend to avoid things that can cause division, strife, or classism among them. They prefer to hold on to their traditional institutions and practices, hence their preference for mostly conservative positions.