Why the Amish don’t vote; an Amish Obama supporter

In (hopefully) the last politically-related posting I’ll be doing for awhile, I just wanted to draw attention to an article in a WVA paper concerning local Amish and the voting issue.

The piece does a nice job of explaining some of the deterrments to voting the Amish encounter as a society that considers itself ‘in the world, but not of it’, including the issue of producing an acceptable form of ID.

Also, running counter to the notion that the Amish are all ‘armchair Republicans‘ as a friend terms it, there is a quote in here from a non-voting Amish man supporting Obama.  ‘When he got blasted, he didn’t waiver off his course,’ said the Amishman. ‘I think he’s the man we need.’

This is the second anecdotal instance I’ve noticed of Amish support for Obama in the press.  I think McCain may be perceived more as a war politician and less of a traditional values-type candidate, at least relative to Bush, which may dampen any potential Amish enthusiasm for his candidacy.

In any case, due largely to beliefs concerning separation from the ‘world’, Amish electoral turnout is usually very low, perhaps around 10%.