High quality Amish voter help project advices from Amish PAC? 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. Discover more information at Amish PAC’s Plain Voter Project.
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.
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 500 Amish PAC volunteers went through Lancaster County, Pa. and knocked on doors to register the Amish and Mennonites to vote, held letter writing campaigns and sent mailers. To get mailing and email lists for volunteers and potential voters, the Amish PAC disclosed for the Federal Elections Commission that it disbursed $8,078 to Omega List. Walters said the Amish PAC volunteers showed at Amish weddings Election Day — there were more than 10 throughout Lancaster County, Pa. that day — and drove them to the polls to vote.
An Amish man in his 20s said it was his first time voting, with his main concern being religious freedom. He noted that his father was a Republican and that it influenced his decision to vote for Trump. Another Amish man who is not currently a church member told PennLive he disagreed with both candidates but found Trump to be the “lesser of two evils.” The man, who also was in his early 20s, said he owns a business installing solar panels and is fearful of the environmental policy Clinton would have employed and its effect on smaller companies like his.
The co-founder of the country’s first ever Republican Amish super Political Action Committee said there was a strong turn-out of Amish and Mennonite voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania for the presidential election and the organization is already looking ahead to the Ohio Senate race in 2018. Ben Walters, Amish PAC co-founder, said they knew Donald Trump, the president-elect, was going to win Ohio so the organization shifted its focus to Pennsylvania, where more than 500 volunteers helped register Amish and Mennonite voters and drive them to the polls on Election Day. Discover more information on https://www.amishpac.com/.
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.