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Just to be clear, do you believe that affirmative action is only or mostly used in situations where a hiring/admissions committee has determined that a set of candidates are equal? Applicants having varying backgrounds, experiences, skills, academic records are applying to a competitive position, and in the end the committee agrees that "yes, this set of candidates is truly most equal so now we will do the tie-breaker based on race"?

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That was the original goal/definition of AA. It was (and is) clear that fully (or even over) qualified candidates with different racial (or gender) backgrounds were being ignored during hiring decisions. The AA proposition was to deliberately "force" the process to work in roughly the way I described. It was not intended to create quotas or to force institutions/organizations to hire under-qualified but demographically balancing candidates.

Of course, as with many things human, this original goal/definition isn't always the one that plays out in practice (somewhat like a number of articles of the US constitution, or adherence to the moral screed of certain theistic religions).

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