Black voter on Trump suppression effort: 'It makes me want to go out and vote more'

Annette Clinton, a Black voter in Wisconsin, told the U.K.’s Channel 4 in an interview broadcasted on Monday that voter suppression efforts from the 2016 campaign increased her drive to vote.

The Channel 4 investigation exposed a Trump campaign database that included 3.5 million Black Americans who were labeled “Deterrence” and made the target of campaign messages designed to dissuade them from voting.

Black voters disproportionately backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, when she won 89% of their vote, according to exit polls.

But Trump ultimately won in Wisconsin, a state where more than one-third of Black voters were marked for “Deterrence,” by just 0.77%.

After being told about the Trump campaign’s actions, Clinton told reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy she felt Blacks had been “targeted” by Trump, noting, “It shouldn’t be like that, that they would use you and categorize you to make it harder for you to vote.”

“It makes me want to go out and vote more,” she said.

From a Sept. 28 broadcast of Channel 4 News:

KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY, Channel 4: This is what the file said about you. That’s you, Annette Clinton?

 

ANNETTE CLINTON: Yes, that’s me.

 

GURU-MURTHY: That’s your address?

 

CLINTON: That’s correct.

 

GURU-MURTHY: Now it says you’re a nurses’ aide or orderly.

 

CLINTON: That’s correct.

 

GURU-MURTHY: It said your income at the time in 2016 was between $25 and $35,000 dollars.

 

CLINTON: That’s correct.

 

GURU-MURTHY: That’s correct. And that you were a renter.

 

CLINTON: Yes, that’s correct too.

 

GURU-MURTHY: So they had you down pretty well?

 

CLINTON: So far.

 

GURU-MURTHY: How do you feel about the idea that the Trump campaign categorized you and lots of other people as “deterrence”?

 

CLINTON: I don’t feel — I don’t feel right by that at all. Because you shouldn’t, they shouldn’t have to categorize no one in order to get votes.

 

GURU-MURTHY: Black people were disproportionately represented. There were many more Black people on that list than there should have been, proportionately, what do you think that tells you?

 

CLINTON: That the Black community is targeted. You know, it shouldn’t be like that, that they would use you and categorize you to make it harder for you to vote.

 

GURU-MURTHY: Does knowing this change anything about how you feel about the last election?

CLINTON: It makes me want to go out and vote more, actually.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.