If there is one thing we’ve had complete confidence in throughout the course of the last 30 years or longer, it’s been the well-oiled machine we know as the Sampson County Board of Elections.

While there may have been some minor hiccups along the way — we recall a voting box delay in one town back in the 90s because the registrars got a quick bite before returning the boxes to the elections office — there has never been even a hint of impropriety when it came to the results or how they were derived.

Board of Elections members, sometimes majority Republican, other times majority Democrat, always got along, trusted and respected one another and, perhaps most importantly, trusted the system and those who ran that system in Sampson County.

It was a well earned trust, too, first with Sylvia Thornton at its helm for many, many of those years, and now under Niya Raynor.

That’s why it disturbs us that last week’s Board of Election meeting seemed to hone in on whether our voter registration protocols were in place and questions about election deniers, showing, we believe, how the divisiveness of national politics and its rhetoric is slowly but surely seeping into what has always been one of the most above board agencies we’ve ever had the privilege of watching and covering.

We appreciate the due diligence of elections board member Dwight Williams and local NAACP President Larry Sutton in bringing thoughts about both aspects of elections to everyone’s attention. Our election staff needs to be ready. But, it is our sincerest hope that those discussions— meant, we hope, to ensure that elections go smoothly for everyone — do not stir animosity or social media conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of our upcoming election, especially as it pertains to Sampson County.

We have enough of that as it is without tainting a really good election system in Sampson County that has never failed any candidate — Democrat, Republican or Independent. Nor do we believe it will this time out.

The election protocols now in place, whether agreed with or not, are sure to be done as instructed, just as deputy Board of Elections director Danielle Malone assured and detailed to elections board members last week.

We’ve no doubt the elections staff will see it happens.

And we are just as sure Board of Election members will not be swayed by so-called deniers if, in fact, any actually exist in Sampson County and actually rear their head when it’s time to cast our ballot in November.

While we are all capable of mistakes, there should be no question that deliberate actions designed to taint our upcoming election here in Sampson would not happen.

And while election deniers abound on the national scene, we see residents here as above that fray.

We hope that continues. Questioning whether everything is ready to run like a well-oiled machine is understandable, laudable even, just as expressing hope that election deniers don’t exist in Sampson is worth mentioning. But we urge everyone to remember the track record we have always had in Sampson elections and just allow staffers to do the jobs they’ve been trained to do.

We have complete confidence in their ability; we hope citizens will too.