DETROIT, United States (AP) — At Sunday services, in rallies and on social media, black pastors urged congregants to vote, hoping to inspire a late flood of African-American turnout that could help propel Democrat Hillary Clinton to victory in critical swing states tomorrow.

In Detroit, a pastor spoke of voting and citizenship. In Philadelphia, the minister reminded congregants others had died for their chance to cast a ballot. Rev Jesse Jackson spoke to a crowd of a few hundred people gathered in front of City Hall in Tallahassee, Florida, right before they marched a block over to the county courthouse to vote early.

Along with women and Hispanics, African-Americans are seen as critical to Clinton’s chances against Republican Donald Trump, who polls show is not popular among black voters. However, early voting data from key states indicate turnout will not be as high this year as it was four years ago, when Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, was on the ballot. Sunday’s efforts were aimed at minimising that decline.

Bishop T D Jakes, pastor of the Texas megachurch The Potter’s House, who has a national and international following, tweeted on a red, white and blue backdrop, “Make sure your voice is heard. Vote on Nov 8.”

“Preachers are trying to strike a moral nerve and somehow penetrate the fog of indifference and try to remind people what’s at stake this year,” said Rev James Forbes, retired senior minister of The Riverside Church, who has been travelling the country to mobilise voters. He was scheduled to speak last night in New York for a national get-out-the-vote telecast from the church called The Revival: Time for a Moral Revolution in Values.

Forbes and other pastors have taken pains to emphasise they were not endorsing a candidate, but it was hard to mistake some remarks Sunday that signalled a deep opposition to Trump.

“There are some folk in this country who think that to make this country great again, we’ve got to exclude folks,” said Rev Mark Tyler, pastor of the Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, founded in the 18th century as one of the first black churches in the US. “We’ve always been great because we’ve always been open to strangers. If it was not for the goodness of the first Americans, there would be no America today.”

The number of African-American voters has increased steadily: 12.9 million in 2000, 14 million in 2004, 16 million in 2008, and 17.8 million in 2012. In the last presidential election year, blacks for the first time voted at a higher rate, 66.2 per cent, than did whites (64.1 per cent), or Asian-Americans or Hispanics, with rates of about 48 per cent each.

Besides the absence of a black candidate on either major party ticket, community leaders and others blame the lower turnout so far on voter suppression efforts, such as limits to early voting hours in some communities and challenges by individuals to voter registrations. A federal judge last Friday ordered registrations to be restored in three North Carolina counties for what could be thousands of challenged voters.

Underscoring the importance of black voters to her campaign, Clinton started her day yesterday with the largely African-American congregation of Mount Airy Church of God in Christ in Philadelphia. Rev Leah Daughtry, chief executive of the Democratic National Convention, spoke across town at Mother Bethel AME Church.

Worshippers clapped and cheered as Tyler, the Mother Bethel pastor, told them “don’t let there be any excuse” for not showing up at the polls, even with a lingering public transit strike. “Somebody died for you to have a right,” Tyler said.

At New Destiny Christian Fellowship, a predominantly black church in Detroit, a table outside the sanctuary had a variety of campaign literature.

“We have a responsibility to vote and make that a part of being a good citizen,” said Rev Horace Sheffield.

Tiffany Gunter, a New Destiny congregant who will vote for Clinton, noted the level of enthusiasm in 2016 was lower among African-Americans than in the previous presidential election. “What Hillary Clinton has is experience. Is she perfect? Absolutely not. There are things about her that I wish were different, but I believe that she does listen and she can adapt,” Gunter said.

In North Carolina, where clergy and others have led marches to early voting sites, preliminary early voting totals showed a drop in percentages for Democratic and black voters compared to 2012, while unaffiliated and Republican vote totals were higher.

“We better vote, simply because people have tried to take the right,” said Rev William Barber, state president of the North Carolina NAACP, outside a church in Wilson, about 40 miles east of Raleigh, as he worked to mobilise voters Saturday.

Rev Michael McBride, pastor of a predominantly black church in California and a leader of the PICO Network, which works for criminal justice reform and against gun violence, has been travelling around the country trying to mobilise voters. He said the bitter tone of the campaign and the personal attacks between Trump and Clinton have “really worn on a lot of people” and drained interest in voting.

“I think we have to temper some of our disappointment with the reality that we’re going to have to live with our decision for the next four years or eight years,” McBride said. “Folks are wrestling with that.”