Were 180,000 new Amish voters registered in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, for the 2024 general election, with the implication being that these are Republicans? No, that's not true: This figure is "completely false," according to a college professor who's an expert on the Amish. Only 10,546 more people in the county registered as Republicans since January 1, 2024, Pennsylvania Department of State statistics show. In the entire state, fewer than 58,000 new Republicans had registered from September 2023 to October 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on October 21, 2024. It said:
180,000 registered New Amish voters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Thanks in huge part to @ScottPresler.
You know it's a huge deal when the amish starts getting involved in politics.
Like most of us, they wanted to be left alone. Our government couldn't do that
Keep it coming. Vote Red to Save America and Make America Great Again.
Let's drop some flags in support. And please don't forget to buy from your local Amish Farmer.🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Nov 1 18:37:04 2024 UTC)
The post mentions conservative activist Scott Presler and implies that a wave of newly registered Amish voters in Lancaster County are Republicans.
According to election and machine voting statistics compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of State, the Republican Party had registered 57,871 new voters in the entire state from September 19, 2023, through October 30, 2024:
(Source: Automatic voter registration statistics compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of State, dated October 30, 2024. Captured by Lead Stories on Fri Nov 1 at 19:57:00 2024 UTC)
Amy Gulli, a Pennsylvania Department of State spokesperson, told Lead Stories via email on November 1, 2024, that the department "does not track this [Amish] data." She directed us to current voter registration broken down by counties in a spreadsheet posted on Voting and Election Statistics | Department of State | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (archived here) and also shared an Excel database of "Current Vote Stats" by county as of October 28, 2024.
According to this data, registered Republican voters in Lancaster County increased by 10,546 between January 1, 2024, and October 28, 2024. Over the same period, registered Democratic voters increased by 3,025.
Here is a screenshot of the numbers for Lancaster County as of January 1, 2024:
(Source: Voter registration statistics by county compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of State, dated January 2, 2024. Captured by Lead Stories on Fri Nov 1 19:59:32 2024 UTC)
Here is a screenshot of the numbers for Lancaster County as of October 28, 2024:
(Source: Voter registration statistics by county compiled by the Pennsylvania Department of State, dated October 28, 2024. Captured by Lead Stories on Fri Nov 1 20:11:23 2024 UTC)
According to statistics compiled by the Amish Studies Department at the Young Center at Elizabethtown College (archived here), Pennsylvania has an estimated Amish population of 92,660 people (archived here).
Steve Nolt (archived here), a history and Anabaptist studies professor and director of the Young Center, told Lead Stories via email on November 1, 2024, that the claim is "completely false."
Young Center data (archived here) shows the total Amish population of the Lancaster County area is about 43,640 -- including Amish living in Chester County -- making the total for Lancaster County about 38,400. This figure represents all residents, including those under 18 who are too young to vote. Nolt estimates that "more than half" of the Amish population is under 18, meaning there are roughly 17,000 eligible Amish voters in Lancaster County. He added:
However, it is implausible to believe that 100% of Amish eligible voters are registered to vote, given the church's long standing discouragement of voting (even though a minority has done so locally for a long time, it's always been a minority).
But the idea that there are tens of thousands of Amish voters in Lancaster County, let alone 180,000, is utterly false and demonstrates that the person sending the message never contacted us to talk about our data.
Put another way, if anyone registered 180,000 Amish voters in Lancaster County, that would be voter registration fraud on a colossal scale! There simply aren't anywhere close to that many eligible Amish voters in Lancaster County.
Gulli warned about online information during the election:
Misinformation and disinformation can come from anywhere and can impact voters of all political persuasions. The Shapiro Administration is committed to combatting election-related disinformation, whatever its source. We urge people to stop and take a moment to verify the source of election-related information before posting, retweeting, and spreading that information to ensure it is accurate and true.
At the time this fact check was written, PolitiFact had reviewed the same claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks regarding the 2024 election can be found here.
