I went to a couple of meetings where they used this exact technique. BLM was supposedly gathering comment on their 5 year plan for our area, and local residents and ranchers were invited. But most of the crowd were from out-of-area environmental groups and even BLM employees in plain clothes. So they broke into small groups and gathered comments from everyone. The locals’ comments were included but sort-of disappeared into the fog of comments from non-locals. They got exactly the answers they wanted while pretending to respect local concerns. Both meetings worked out identically.
Bingo! That was the “Delphi Technique”. Thank you for sharing.
Maybe more importantly once people understand it a little. How is it stopped? Ordinarily Robert’s Rules of Order are the mechanism for above board meetings. I suppose one could ask for a minute to speak ahead of time, and have a printed outline to explain to the public and ranchers what jiggery-pokery is about to ensue, how it works, and how it is a highly unethical method of obtaining “consensus”.