An Arizona State Capitol insider with knowledge of recent incidents there told The Arizona Sun Times that progressive activist Walter Ringfield, Jr. – the same man who was arrested for allegedly stealing an election machine tabulator key fob – was caught breaking and entering into the Arizona Senate recently. Video surveillance footage allegedly caught him stealing collectible coins from the security area and walking around on the third floor unauthorized. When apprehended by security, he was asked to leave. The insiders said that Ringfield told security he was there to deliver some documents to State Senator Juan Mendez (D-Tempe).
News reports about the election key fob theft broke a Monday. According to a police report obtained by The Sun Times, surveillance video shows Ringfield putting the set into his pocket.
Primary ballots will be mailed out on July 3.
The 27-year-old Ringfield was charged with one count of misdemeanor theft and one count of felony criminal damage. He is still in jail, having been denied bail due to his prior criminal history and the felony charge. According to the police report, he initially claimed he only took the items for 20 minutes, but after looking in his car and executing a search warrant at his residence, the items were recovered.
The police report states – without further explanation – “Walter said the job was temporary and he was trying to make it permanent, so he wanted to clean up.”
The Tucson Sentinel described the stolen items as follows: “The lanyard had a plastic key on it as well as the security fob, which workers use to gain access to the machines to program them. The workers hold the fob to the tabulators and then enter a password before getting access.”
Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates and Sheriff Frank Milstead held a joint press conference Tuesday morning to address the incident. Gates confirmed that the stolen equipment was used to access tabulators on Election Day.
Holding up a black key, Gates said, “So this black security key right here, this is utilized under normal circumstances. This is just used on Election Day. This is for the Election Day tabulators. So the folks who are involved in that going out to the 223 vote centers that we have across Maricopa County on July 30, on primary day. This will be out there. What we do at the beginning of each day, we do an inventory check and make sure that we have all of these black security keys.”
Gates added, “We did that on Friday morning. We found that one was missing. So immediately, our team and elections, they spoke to all of the people who were working in the ballot tabulation center on Thursday, the day before, and they also reviewed the security camera footage. So we have security cameras, we also have the live stream cameras. They evaluated that, and they determined that the suspect that we’ve been talking about had taken the black security key and put it in his pocket and then removed it from the ballot tabulation center.”
After stating that the keys had been reprogrammed since the incident, he dismissed concerns as conspiracy theories.
“Is there any concern that this could spark a new wave of new conspiracy theories, so unfortunately, as you say at Maricopa County, we have been subject to many conspiracy theories over the past few years, which have been debunked time and time again,” he said. “I certainly hope that people don’t take this incident to spin up news conspiracy theories.”
An account on X named @mad_liberals, known for its intensive research into election fraud, said the admin accounts at Maricopa County all use the same password, showing how it is improper security. “Everyone is listed as an admin with same password,” the account said, displaying a screenshot of the alleged accounts. “That’s an encrypted password that I’m showing. The real password is an 8 digit number. That’s why you’re forced to reburn every fob when one is compromised. Otherwise, you’d just remove the one user.”
