LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — On a recent weekday afternoon, an Amish man in a horse-drawn buggy made his way through a busy intersection of automobile traffic in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, passing a sign that proclaimed: “Pray for God’s mercy for our nation”.

The sign featured a large image of a wide-brimmed straw hat often worn by the Amish. If there was further doubt about its target audience, the smaller print listed the sponsor as “Fer Die Amische,” referring to the Amish in their Pennsylvania German dialect.

Researchers say most Amish do not register to vote, reflecting the Christian movement’s historical separatism from broader society, just as they have maintained their dialect and horse-drawn carriage transportation.

But a small minority has voted, and the Amish are most numerous in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania. So, this year they are being targeted in the latest decades of efforts to register more of them to vote.

Republicans seek your votes through billboards, advertisements, door-to-door visits and community meetings. Republican activists see the Amish as receptive to GOP talking points: smaller government, less regulation, religious freedom.

“All they want is for the government to stay out of not only their business but their religion,” said Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker, whose district includes Lancaster County, in the heart of the nation’s largest Amish population. country. Smucker, whose family is Amish, predicted a dramatic increase in the Amish vote, “based on the enthusiasm we see.”

Most Amish Don’t Vote, But Every Vote Matters in a Swing State

But while such efforts could lead to an increase, don’t expect the Amish vote to dramatically influence the Keystone State’s results, said Steven Nolt, director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County.

“For most of Amish history and in most Amish communities today, Amish do not vote,” he said. “They haven’t voted, they’re not going to vote, and I think it’s safe to say that in the near future we wouldn’t expect them to.”

But the Amish in a handful of settlements in Lancaster and elsewhere have voted, generally less than 10% of their population, Nolt said. He has overseen post-election analyzes of voter registration trends in areas with significant Amish populations — painstaking research that involves manually checking voter lists and church directories 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 draws on several sources, including almanacs, newspapers and directories. About half are in the Lancaster area and the rest scattered throughout the state.

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

“Even if we imagine, for example, that here in Lancaster, there would be a tremendous percentage in terms of percentage … we’re looking at anywhere from several hundred to maybe a thousand additional voters,” he said.

That alone can’t come close to flipping 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 participation. He said Republican messages resonate with a changing Amish community.

“Once again it was agrarian, but they ran out of land in Lancaster County a long time ago,” he said. Only a minority still farm, and many start small businesses, where the Republican emphasis on limited regulation is attractive. Additionally, he said, the Amish community perceives Republicans as friendlier to religious freedom and opposed to abortion.

He said the Amish tell stories of how their ancestors were more likely to vote in the 1950s during controversies over compulsory school policies, but the practice has since declined.

Wayne Wengerd, director of the Ohio State Amish Steering Committee, which manages relations between Amish community leaders and government officials, recalls registration efforts dating back to the 1960s. Activists in favor of getting the vote “They are going to go after everyone and anyone they think they could convince to vote for their party,” he said. “The Amish are no different.”

Amish theology keeps church separate from government

But most Amish avoid voting according to “two kingdoms” theology, which establishes a sharp separation between earthly government and the church, centered on a heavenly kingdom. They see themselves “being citizens primarily of another kingdom,” Wengerd said.

But, he noted, 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 also not surprising that any Amish who votes would be influenced by the preferences of their neighbors. Most Amish voters register as Republicans, he said. .

An advertisement in a Lancaster-area newspaper, attributed to an anonymous Ohio “Amishman,” said that refusing to vote would violate Scripture by failing to “oppose evil” while “every good thing our nation stands for is destroyed.” A voicemail seeking comment, left with the phone number in the ad, was not returned.

Nolt said the ad appeals to a theology more similar to that of mainstream Reformed Protestantism, which says Christians have a duty to both God and country, than to traditional Amish two-kingdom theology.

“It’s very different than anything contained in historical Amish documents, which would have said that the responsibility of the church is to be the church,” he said.

Nolt said a letter sent to Amish residents did ask to vote Republican, but did not appear directed at the Amish in particular, citing issues such as immigration.

Trump’s widespread support among conservative Christians of many stripes has long perplexed observers, given his casino ventures, sexual assault allegations and vulgar public statements.

Nolt, however, said that compared to the separatist lifestyles of the Amish, none of the presidential candidates look much like them, one of the reasons most of them don’t vote. “Donald Trump’s life is very different from that of an Amish person, but so is Kamala Harris’s,” he said.