Donald Trump’s 2016 US presidential election campaign has been accused of actively seeking to deter 3.5 million black Americans in battleground states from voting by deliberately targeting them with negative Hillary Clinton ads on Facebook.
The secret effort concentrated on 16 swing states, several narrowly won by Trump after the black Democrat vote collapsed.
The claims have come from an investigation by Channel 4 News, which was leaked a copy of a vast election database it says was used by the Trump campaign in 2016.
Comprising the records of 198 million Americans, and containing details about their domestic and economic status acquired from market research firms, the investigation claimed voters were segmented into eight categories.
One was marked “deterrence”. Those placed in the special category – voters thought likely to vote for Clinton or not at all – were disproportionately black.
According to the investigation, the Trump campaign’s goal was to dissuade them…
