Republicans are seeking support from the Amish in Pennsylvania, where only a small minority participates in elections

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — On a weekday afternoon, an Amish man in a horse-drawn carriage navigated a busy intersection with car traffic in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, past a billboard that read: “Pray for God's mercy on our nation.” ”

The billboard featured a large-brimmed straw hat that the Amish often wore. If there was still any doubt about the target audience, the sponsor was listed in the small print as “Fer Die Amische” – a reference to the Amish in their Pennsylvania German dialect.

Researchers say most Amish do not register to vote, reflecting the Christian movement's historic separatism from mainstream society, just as they have retained their dialect and horse-drawn mode of transportation.

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But a small minority voted, and the Amish are most numerous in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. That's why they're being targeted this year in the latest decade-long effort to register more of them to vote.

Republicans seek their votes through billboards, advertisements, door-to-door canvassing campaigns and town hall meetings. Republican activists see the Amish as receptive to the GOP's talking points — smaller government, less regulation, religious freedom.

“They just want the government to stay out of not only their business but their religion,” said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., whose district includes Lancaster County, the heartland of the largest Amish population of the country. Smucker, whose family background is Amish, predicted a dramatic increase in Amish votes “based on the enthusiasm that we're seeing.”

Most Amish don't vote, but in a swing state, every vote counts
But while such efforts could lead to a surge, the Amish vote is not expected to dramatically affect the Keystone State's bottom line, said Steven Nolt, director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County.

“In most Amish history and in most Amish communities today, Amish people don’t vote,” he said. “They didn’t vote, they didn’t vote, and I think it’s safe to say we wouldn’t expect them to in the near future.”

But Amish in a handful of settlements in Lancaster and elsewhere have voted, usually less than 10% of their population, Nolt said. He has overseen post-election analyzes of voter registration trends in areas with large Amish populations – painstaking research that requires manual matching of voter rolls and church rolls and cannot be done in real time during an election.

There are currently about 92,000 Amish of all ages in Pennsylvania, according to the Young Center's research, which is based on a variety of sources including almanacs, newspapers and directories. About half of them are in the Lancaster area, with the rest scattered throughout the state.

But in a community with lots of children, fewer than half of the Amish are of voting age, Nolt said. He estimated that about 3,000 Amish voted in the Lancaster area in 2020, and several hundred elsewhere, he said.

“Even if we were to imagine, for example, that there was a huge percentage here in Lancaster … we're looking at several hundred to maybe a thousand additional voters,” he said.

That alone isn't enough to topple a state that went for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 by about 80,000 votes.

Of course, the Amish aren't the only religious or ethnic group being courted by candidates. “In a context where every vote counts, every vote counts,” Nolt said. “But no, we’re not talking about tens of thousands of Amish votes.”

Still, Smucker is optimistic about greater voter turnout. He said Republicans' messages would resonate with a changing Amish community.

“It was agricultural again, but they ran out of land in Lancaster County a long time ago,” he said. Only a minority still work in agriculture, many starting small businesses, where the Republican emphasis on limited regulation is appealing. Additionally, he said, the Amish community perceives Republicans as more friendly toward religious freedom and opposed to abortion.

He said the Amish told stories about their ancestors being more likely to vote during controversies over compulsory education policies in the 1950s, but the practice has since declined.

Wayne Wengerd, Ohio state director of the Amish Steering Committee, which manages relations between Amish community leaders and government officials, remembers registration efforts as early as the 1960s. Voting activists will attack “anyone and everyone they think they can convince to vote for their party,” he said. “The Amish are no different.”

Amish theology keeps the church separate from the government
But most Amish avoid voting in accordance with “two kingdoms” theology, which creates a clear separation between the earthly government and the church and focuses on a heavenly kingdom. They see themselves “first and foremost as citizens of another kingdom,” Wengerd said.

However, he noted that some still vote. “The Amish are like any other people,” he said. “Not everyone thinks the same.”

Rural Lancaster County has voted Republican for generations, Nolt said, so it's no surprise that any Amish who vote are influenced by their neighbors' preferences. Most Amish voters register as Republicans, he said. .

An ad in a Lancaster-area newspaper attributed to an anonymous “Amishman” from Ohio claimed that refusing to vote would violate scripture by failing to “stand against evil,” while “all good, for our nation stands, will be destroyed.” A voicemail message seeking comment left with the phone number in the ad was not returned.

Nolt said the ad addresses a theology that is more similar to the theology of mainstream Reformed Protestantism, which holds that Christians have a duty to both God and the land, than to traditional Amish Two Kingdoms theology.

“It's very different than anything in historical Amish documents that say the church's responsibility is to be the church,” he said.

Nolt said that while a letter sent to Amish residents called for them to vote Republican, it did not appear to be aimed specifically at the Amish and referenced issues such as immigration.

Widespread support for Trump among conservative Christians of many stripes has long puzzled observers given his casino ventures, allegations of sexual assault and vulgar public statements.

However, Nolt said that compared to the Amish's separatist lifestyle, none of the presidential candidates look much like them – a reason why most of them don't vote. “Donald Trump’s life is very different from the life of an Amish person, but so is Kamala Harris,” he said.

Associated Press religion coverage is supported by the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.