Posts falsely claim over 200,000 Amish voters have registered to vote for Trump in swing state
- Published on November 5, 2024 at 10:48
- 3 min read
- By Nahiara S. ALONSO, AFP USA
- Translation and adaptation Mary KULUNDU
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An Instagram post circulating in several countries, including the US and Cameroon, shared a video of carriages drawn by horses, with people on them — allegedly Amish — waving banners and placards showing support for Trump.
According to the post, more than 200,000 Amish people registered to vote in the 2024 US election on November 5 after Vice President Kamala Harris “raided Amos Miller Organic Milk Farm,” located in Pennsylvania.
Miller, a farmer in Lancaster County, is reportedly being sued by the state’s Department of Agriculture and Attorney General for selling raw milk without a permit (archived here).
“The Amish have chosen a side after the Kamala Harris Admin raided Amos Miller Organic Milk Farm. And that side is Freedom, Deregulation and Donald Trump ‼️ 2020: 45-50K Amish registered to vote (video) Now in 2024: 200K+ voter registrations,” reads the post published on October 24, 2024.
A similar post claiming 180,000 Amish were registered to vote in Pennsylvania circulated in Spanish and was debunked by AFP Fact Check here.
The Amish are a religious group settled mainly in the United States and Canada. They practise Anabaptist Christianity, reject modern technology and work fields without using most farm machinery (archived here).
Pennsylvania is a key jurisdiction because it is considered a swing state, meaning there is no clear candidate in the polls. The state has 19 of the 270 electoral votes that a candidate needs to win the election (archived here).
In 2020, President Joe Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes (archived here).
But the claim about 200,000 Amish registering to vote for Trump in the state is false.
Small population
According to statistics from the Amish Studies Department at the Young Center at Elizabethtown College, the estimated Amish population in Pennsylvania is 92,660 people as of 2024 (archived here).
Steven M. Nolt, director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, told AFP Fact Check that “it is totally impossible that there are 180,000 registered Amish voters in Pennsylvania”.
“The total number of Amish voters in the state could be, at most, several thousand, not tens of thousands,” he added.
Nolt argued that “about half or a little more than half of the Amish population is under the age of 18,” so the eligible Amish in Pennsylvania would number approximately 45,000.
“Only a small percentage of these people would likely be registered to vote,” he noted.
Nolt further commented that although there are some settlements where voting has long been tolerated and is practised by a minority, “many Amish communities around Pennsylvania so strongly discourage voting that it is practically prohibited” (archived here).
Additionally, the video in the claim is old. A closer look at the banners indicates the names “Trump Pence” – referring to Donald Trump and his 2020 running mate Mike Pence.
Trump’s current running mate is JD Vance, a 40-year-old senator from Ohio.
A reverse image search also revealed the same video in the post we are debunking was shared on Facebook four years ago alongside the captions: “Amish Trump parade” (archived here).
Aside from viral posts, AFP Fact Check found no other content or news about an alleged 180,000 to 200,000 Amish registering to vote for Trump.
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