INTERCOURSE, Pa. – Aaron Beiler, a 51-year-old dairy farmer and hay salesman, remembers a time when he was younger and all the elders within his reclusive Amish farming community voted for presidential candidates.

But turnout over recent decades has withered, and the attitude among Amish religious leaders has been not to vote for politicians, but to pray for them.

Mr. Beiler wants to change all that. Over the last few months, he and a handful of other Amish activists allied with the local Republican Party have launched a campaign to register more than 3,000 new Amish voters – people they hope will support President Bush on Tuesday.

“What good does praying do if you pray and pray and pray and then do nothing?” Mr. Beiler said, driving his black horse-driven buggy around country roads lined with rolling cornfields and the occasional Bush/Cheney poster.

“You can be on your knees all day,” he added, “but that doesn’t mean the cows will get milked.”

Mr. Beiler is one of an estimated 27,000 Amish people here in the seat of Lancaster County, a rural contested area in a pivotal battleground state. With an estimated 25,000 additional Amish members in Pennsylvania, along with an Amish community of 55,000 in other contested states such as Ohio, the reclusive Amish have become an unanticipated voting bloc stirred up by social issues like gay marriage and abortion.

On July 9, Mr. Bush met privately with 30 Amish leaders. Before heading off to Ohio later today, the president is scheduled to stump at the Lancaster County airport in a sustained effort to capture Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes. An average of six polls of likely voters conducted in recent days shows Senator Kerry leading the state by 3.3 percentage points, a lead slightly above the margin of error.

While the number of Amish who are eligible to vote comprises only a minute fraction – .002% – of Pennsylvania’s more than 12 million residents, and a similar number in Ohio, Mr. Beiler notes that in a neck-to-neck race, every vote counts. The county’s Republican committee has also been courting the Amish by running voter-registration stands that feature life-sized cardboard cutouts of Mr. Bush at county fairs and weekly farm auctions.

“This very well could be the key deciding factor,” said Chris Hackman, the GOP’s registration coordinator for the county. “Then again, in a close race anyone could point to a slight increase in any part of the state and say, ‘That’s the reason we won.'”

The director of the state’s Democratic Party, Don Morabito, said Republican operatives were “misreading” the Amish vote by promoting social issues. Instead, he said many Amish, who are pacifists, would either choose not to vote or would support Mr. Kerry for his criticism of the war in Iraq.

“If the Republicans think all Amish will vote Bush simply because of the gay marriage issue and the abortion issue, they would be wrong,” Mr. Morabito said. “Their pacifism is a stronger part of their heritage.”

The Amish are a fervently Christian subculture from parts of Switzerland and Germany that settled in Lancaster in the late 18th century as part of Quaker visionary William Penn’s “holy experiment” in religious tolerance.

While many Amish now use mobile phones and commute via roller blades, the community attracts thousands of tourists each year with its plain style of dress – including straw hats for men and bonnets for women – and its secluded, agrarian lifestyle. Driving cars, watching television, and using telephones in homes, along with paying Social Security tax and divorcing spouses, are all off-limits.

A sociologist specializing in Amish culture at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster, Don Kraybill, said he was surprised by the positive response some members of the Amish community have had to efforts to mobilize them in this year’s election. Still, he is doubtful they will deliver a significant chunk of votes.

“What you’re seeing here is really not an Amish phenomenon but a rural Republican phenomenon,” Mr. Kraybill said, predicting that turnout will rise from between the typical 5% to 10% of eligible Amish voters to between 15% and 20% – a noteworthy increase, but one that is not likely to decisively swing Pennsylvania or Ohio.

Behind the Amish registration movement has also been the efforts of Mr. Beiler’s cousin, Chet Beiler, a formerly Amish gazebo-maker who served as chairman of the county’s Republican Party before resigning in an election fraud scandal.

Six months after the 2000 presidential election, Chet Beiler was indicted for violating election laws by paying campaign workers $4 for every voter registered and $8 for every voter registered who was willing to support Mr. Bush.

In an interview with The New York Sun, Chet Beiler, who also lives in Lan caster County, said he pleaded no contest to the election fraud charges and served 50 days community service to have the charges expunged from his criminal record.

Chet Beiler is hoping to resurrect his political career, having recently mounted a campaign for the state’s auditor general position before endorsing another Republican candidate.

Herman Bontrager, secretary-treasurer for the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, an advocacy group, said the Beilers and other Republican activists were acting “irresponsibly” and being “divisive” by using issues such as gay marriage to encourage voting in a community that is relatively uneducated on the entire spectrum of political issues.

“Fear tactics,” Mr. Kraybill said, of the Beilers’ mobilization campaign.

Mr. Bontrager predicted most Amish would follow the advice of religious leaders and not vote. “Should anything happen, the Amish don’t want to be credited with pushing the campaign one way or another,” he said.

Both Aaron and Chet Beiler denied they are attempting to frighten their fellow Amish into supporting Mr. Bush and said they have encouraged all to get involved in the electoral process.

“I think we can all agree that it’s important for everyone to vote,” Chet Beiler said, adding that the Amish emphasis on reading and education has made members of the community more attuned to the candidate’s positions compared to other voters, many of whom rely on television for information.

“With so many vital issues at stake,” Mr. Beiler said, “it should surprise no one that the Amish want to participate in an election where every vote counts.”