Excellent Amish voter project advices from 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. See additional information at help the Amish register to vote.
Generally, the Amish people will not share flyers, erect signs depicting a politician’s face, or visibly champion their cause. This is because they don’t want a false idol or graven image, as both elements are strongly frowned upon in their faith. The voter identification requirements also discourage many Amish people from being interested in the political process. Having their photographs taken directly conflicts with their code of conduct, and the stress of circumventing this process means only a few Amish people have shown interest over the years.
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.
“Trump won by just a razor thin margin across Pennsylvania,” said Walters, who said the Amish votes helped and that he doesn’t think Trump would have won Pennsylvania “if it hadn’t been for the Amish vote.” “Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania was identical to the Amish population of Pennsylvania. Again, I’m not claiming every single Amish person voted, but without the votes of those who went to the polls that day…a recount would have been likely,” Walters said. See extra details at https://www.amishpac.com/.
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.