Valentine Bridgeman
Guest Reporter
Commentators have suggested that the Amish vote may have been key to getting crucial swing state Pennsylvania to go to Trump in the US presidential election.
Speaking on the Tucker Carlson Network, Elon Musk said his organisation dedicated to helping Trump win the election “paid particular attention to the Amish community in Pennsylvania".
Ultimately, Trump was projected to have won the Pensylvannia by 50.7 percent versus Harris’ 48.3 percent after 97 percent of the votes had come in.
However, the result could have been different, were it not for a last-minute effort to canvas votes by Elon Musk.
Musk’s America PAC, a political action committee created by the owner of Tesla and X with the backing of tech businessmen to support Donald Trump, focused its efforts in Pennsylvania on the eve of the election.
According to sources cited by the New York Times, the organisation contracted Blitz canvassing to conduct an extensive ballot curing operation in Pennsylvania.
Ballot curing is used for when voter makes a mistake on their mail-in ballot, and in order for their vote to count needs to confirm it by casting a provisional ballot at the polls.
Ballot curing involves contacting these voters one by one in order to get them to verify their vote, and is a labour intensive process for relatively low reward, showing how close Republicans felt the vote was in Pennsylvania.
Moreover, speaking on the Tucker Carlson Network, Musk said that while the Democrats tend to be better at mobilising voters, America PAC “massively improved the Republican Ground Game in the Swing States”
He said they tried to change this and targeted one community in particular.
Musk said that following “government overreach” in an incident where the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture stormed Amish Farmer Amos Miller’s farm after reports of illness linked to the milk he produced, the Amish were more willing to vote.
Numerous Amish were seen at polling stations on Election day, with some Republicans comparing the scene to the arrival of the ents at Isengard in Lord of the Rings, The Twin Towers.
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92,000 of the 400,000 Amish in America live in Pennsylvania, and normally only one in five of them vote, but this time Musk stepped into facilitate their electoral participation
Most Amish are Protestant Anabaptists follow the basic tenets of Christian faith, emphasising simplicity, separation from popular culture and pacifism.
Musk said: “The Democrats are normally extremely good at making it convenient to vote, so we made sure everyone had a ride, we paid particular attention to the Amish community in Pennsylvania.
“The Amish are allowed to ride in a van as long as they’re not driving the van”.
Pennsylvania was one of the seven swing states which were predicted to be crucial to the 2024 election, along with Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.
Furthermore, as it carries 19 electoral votes, fifth most off all states along with Illinois, it was seen as the pivotal state in the US Election, with Trump and Harris both visiting it more than a dozen times.
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