Amish voting help recommendations from Amish PAC 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 more info at Amish PAC’s Plain Voter Project.
In Pennsylvania, during the 2016 elections, out of the 15,055 Amish people eligible to vote in the state, only 2,052 registered. And of those, only 1,016 participated in the voting process. The highest turnout of Amish voters by percentage was in 2004, when about 13% of registered Amish voters participated in the elections and voted for George W. Bush, as they are typically Republican by registration and conviction. The seeming apathy of the Amish people stems from personal preference, though the church leaders discourage their followers from getting too involved in politics.
Paula Page Eicher of Claysburg said she travelled from Bedford County to help get out the Amish vote and help inform the community of the issues that were at stake. She shuttled several people from weddings and their homes to polling locations Tuesday because she felt so strongly about the election’s impact on the direction of this country. “I had a desire in my heart to do something more than just cast a ballot,” Eicher said. Eicher said she spoke to Amish teenage girls about the need to vote and having their voices heard as women in coming elections. She also said she explained the role of the electoral college and why Pennsylvania was so important to securing the election for Trump.
“We had one guy who said that he showed up at one house and he ended up taking five people to the polls that day. It was like hitting the jackpot,” said Walters. Walters said the Amish and Mennonites are fed up with farming and small business regulations that are affecting them and that this presidential election is just the beginning — he said the organization is looking ahead to the Ohio Senate race in 2018. “Sherrod Brown is up for re-election. We’ll have the Amish coming for him next.”
Of the Amish voters who spoke to PennLive on Tuesday, nearly all said they voted for Trump, with a handful declining to address which candidate they supported. The overwhelming tenor of the Amish remarks on the election were that Trump was a flawed candidate but a better representative of the issues that matter to them. Because the Amish rarely grant interviews, PennLive is respecting the voters’ wishes not to be identified. One Amish voter, a man in his 30s, said it was the first time he had voted since 2008. He said he was unhappy with the political process but will continue to vote and voice his opinions.
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. See extra info on https://www.amishpac.com/.
Ensuring that unregistered conservatives, such as the Amish people, go to the polls to vote is essential to those who challenge incumbents. This may be why Democrats and Republicans have spent much of the past four years convincing the Amish people that casting a vote is essential. One of the significant efforts toward improving voting among Amish people is the creation of the AmishPAC. The committee utilizes media channels such as newspaper ads and billboards throughout communities with a significant Amish presence. They take this approach since Amish people are not on social media platforms, nor do they watch television.