It wasn't gossip, it came directly from Sylvia's exit interview when she told us about the Explorer and Shelterbuilder alliances. While Earl and others worked on the shelter, Liliana, Rocky and others went exploring the island. Realizing they were 10 and only 9 were left in camp, they decided there and then to align in case they'd go to TC all together. Unfortunately for them, Dreamz was part of their 10 so he told Earl all about it. Earl, with Yau Man, Boo, and others, then decided to form the shelterbuilders' alliance in response. Sylvia used that information when she divided the tribes, trying to split them equally so she'd have friends no matter where she wound up. The Explorers more or less dropped their alliance when they saw the whole group of 19 wasn't going to TC but Earl never forgot about it. So while he lost some during the pre-merge, the shelter builders were up 6-3 when the tribe all went to TC together and all six of them were in the Final 6.

After he won, Earl confirmed that when he saw the racial divisions he thought they'd do Cook Islands v2.0 so he assembled all the African Americans on that first night and told them that they'd have to stick together and not let anyone try to divide them. Then there was a secret scene where Liliana talked to Lisi, trying to get her on board with the other Hispanics but Lisi didn't go along.

As for this season, I know that once they decided to void the vote, they had to show the outing but they didn't have to void the vote in the first place. They certainly went through the process many times even when the vote was obvious. In fact this was more like the exception, not the rule. It put Zeke more or less in front of a "fait accompli". That's what I hated and that's why I say SeeBS is also guilty.