It was remarkable to hear a chair describe the workaround publicly. How the sausage gets made, it turns out, is one phone call at a time out of public earshot. Optics would suggest the public meeting was merely a ceremony to ratify a done deal, without public input or, apparently, committee discussion.

Anyone who’s heard Hamilton knows the deals get cut in a room you’re kept out of. Rowan County’s twist: they let us into the room and thought they had cut the deal before we got there. Optics, how something is perceived by the public, don’t require mind-reading the way motives do. I’d like to turn that lens on the recent Board of Elections special meeting on the 2026 midterm early voting plan.

Chair Dave Collins canceled the regular monthly meeting, one with public comment. He replaced it with a special meeting and allowed none. This occurred right before a very contested decision — one the public packed the room to weigh in on. Optics would suggest a plan its chair was afraid to defend in front of the people it affects.

Collins spoke with each board member individually beforehand, and by his own account did it because deliberating together would have to be public. Members arrived with different understandings of what was coming, having never talked it through as a body. North Carolina’s open meetings law turns on simultaneous communication among a majority, so these one-on-one conversations are not illegal. This is what makes them such a convenient, if underhanded, tool. It was remarkable to hear a chair describe the workaround publicly. How the sausage gets made, it turns out, is one phone call at a time out of public earshot. Optics would suggest the public meeting was merely a ceremony to ratify a done deal, without public input or, apparently, committee discussion.

In the final vote, there was no unanimity. The decision goes to Raleigh, once again surrendering local government’s responsibility to govern locally. Optics would suggest Collins, Hewitt and Leatherman know that if you never actually deliberate, you never have to own the outcome. Talk less. Smile more.

— Erin FitzPatrick