A LinkedIn account belonging to Maricopa County Elections temporary employee Walter Ringfield, Jr., who was arrested last Friday for allegedly stealing a digital magnetic key used to program Election Day voting machine tabulators, was deleted sometime after his arrest. This erased his connection to a radical group with ties to progressive billionaire George Soros, One Voice, One Vote.
When investigators looked through Ringfield’s social media that wasn’t deleted, they discovered a post he’d made vowing to thwart Republican lawyers combating wrongdoing on Election Day.
Caroline Wren, an advisor for Kari Lake who has broken much of the story about Ringfield (pictured above), posted a recent screenshot from one of his accounts, which was not listed on his Arizona State University page containing his social media links — all of those accounts were deleted except his TruthSocial account — revealing the statement. Ringfield was responding on his Threads account to an article from Politico, which said in the description, “Donald Trump’s campaign said that it plans to deploy more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers across battleground states to monitor — and potentially challenge — vote counting in November.” Ringfield responded, “Nope I got it.”
Probably nothing to see here.
Just Walter Ringfield Jr posting “Nope I got it” in response to an article about the Trump campaign deploying 100,000 attorneys across battleground states to monitor vote counting in November.@mcsoaz, still think he wasn’t politically motivated? pic.twitter.com/H4wkhVUCkv
— Caroline Wren (@CarolineWren) June 27, 2024
Wren made screenshots of the LinkedIn account information before it was deleted, revealing that Ringfield is currently “Volunteer Staff at Our Voice Our Vote.” A Facebook page, which was also not listed on his ASU page containing social media links — contains a photo of Ringfield standing at a podium wearing an OVOV shirt along with two other men. A recent image he posted on his Facebook page was of an LGBT and transgender flag.
Hi Arizona media!
Quick question, you’re claiming Walter Ringfield is a Trump supporter. Can you please then explain why in 2022 he worked at the left wing organization Our Voice Our Vote @OVOV_AZ ?@yvonnewingett @JenAFifield @VaughnHillyard @Garrett_Archer pic.twitter.com/yzMEmjnGTx
— Caroline Wren (@CarolineWren) June 25, 2024
The 501(c)(4) OVOV, which has an affiliated SuperPAC, is heavily active in Arizona elections. The SuperPAC received funding from Community Change Voters (CCV). CCV gave OVOV $250,000 in 2022. According to InfluenceWatch, “CCV has received funding from major left-of-center institutions, including Priorities USA Action, Win Justice, and the United Auto Workers Education Fund. The PAC has also received donations from Democratic mega-donors, including George Soros, James Simons, Liz Simons, and Penny Pritzker.” Soros gave CCV $3 million in 2016. CCV spent millions supporting Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton for president and opposing Republicans.
The progressive Change for Arizona 2024 PAC (CFA) gave OVOV $10,000 in 2022. CFA spent funds to defeat U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).
The FEC’s website shows OVOV has received 9,459 contributions since it launched in 2019. The bulk of them are small donations from the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. Peter Bernegger, an election integrity investigator, researched the huge number of small donations from ActBlue to progressive causes and campaigns and said he believes they are being done illegally in the names of donors who are unaware of them, which has been nicknamed “Smurfing.”
OVOV’s mission statement said it is “committed to advocating for sustainable progressive public policies” and “mobilizing voters.” On its Form 990 filing, the mission statement is described as “Community organizing and activism focusing on leadership development, voter registration and get out to vote programs.” OVOV describes itself as “The largest Black-led PAC in Arizona history.”
A registered Democrat named Jeremy Garrett, who works as an electoral campaign manager for OVOV, was implicated in a scheme this year that involved allegedly forging signatures to put fake candidates on the ballot.
OVOV pushed the Arizona Fair Elections Act in 2022, which failed to make the ballot. It would have added numerous progressive laws to Arizona’s elections, such as Ranked Choice Voting, open primaries, and allowed for same-day voter registration on Election Day.
OVOV and its sister nonprofits lost their tax-exempt status in 2020 for failing to file tax returns for three straight years, The Arizona Republic reported. The article observed, “The nonprofits have since been reinstated, but their tax filings cannot be found in any public forum.” A Phoenix resident filed a complaint with then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs against OVOV, which alleged illegal activity between the group and its founder, former Democratic legislator Reginald Bolding.
Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who ran against Bolding in 2022 for that office, accused him of illegal wrongdoing and demanded that he resign from OVOV. “Mr. Bolding should be more concerned that what he did, and continues to do, is wrong, illegal, and possibly criminal, not that he got called out for abandoning his duties to the mission of his group,” he posted on X. Nothing appears to have resulted from the complaint.
OVOV’s agenda includes “Voter Justice,” “Economic Justice,” “Racial Justice,” and “Youth Justice.” The group regularly holds “Vote Surge Saturdays” to register voters.
During the 2019-2020 campaign cycle, the OVOV SuperPAC spent $271,489 supporting Democratic candidates and $46,750 opposing Republican candidates.
OVOV brought in almost $3 million in revenue in 2022, double the amount in 2021. Many of the donations were over $1,000 and from out-of-state donors. OVOV raises money through its 501(3)(4), which does not have to disclose donors, and then transfers the money to its SuperPAC.
Wren also noticed Ringfield has photos on his Instagram of himself with numerous progressive politicians. There were no photos of him with any Republicans. He has individual photos with Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Representative Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04), and Tempe Mayor Cory Woods.
In a group photo, Ringfield described the Democrats next to him with this caption, “With a smile on my face it’s time to introduce some of my friends…It was a blessing to be in the presence of good friends. #teamhodge” The others in the photo include Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, former Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano, and Tempe Councilmember Beretta Hodge. He said he was honored to intern for Hodge and her husband and described Giuliano as “The legend @neilgiuliano. He is 6-0 in political campaigns. Has met every president except 1 since he has been in the political realm. He’s so awesome.”
Also some photos exist of Ringfield individually, with some of them located by scrolling to the right of the group photo.
A photo of Ringfield from 2022 shows him wearing a congressional campaign shirt for Jevin Hodge, the husband of Beretta Hodge. The description said he interned for both Hodges.
View this post on Instagram
While most of Ringfield’s other social media accounts were deleted or scraped of data, his TruthSocial account is still there with posts. Some of them were reposts of other conservative accounts. On June 8, 2023, he reposted an article from The Federalist entitled “Louisiana Sends Constitutional Amendment Proposal Banning ‘Zuckbucks’ In Elections To Voters For Approval.” That same day, he reposted a post from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton denouncing former President Barack Obama’s election crime branch for meeting with IRS head Lois Lerner to obtain documents on political organizations.
Almost none of the posts Ringfield made himself addressed politics.
The mainstream media has mostly ignored the story. The scant coverage by the mainstream media has focused on Ringfield’s TruthSocial reposts. An article from the progressive Meidas Touch that was published on MSN was titled “Individual Who Stole Equipment from Maricopa County Election Center is Apparent Trump Supporter.” It has not been corrected.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, an election fraud denier who is running for reelection as a Republican but who said he intends to vote for Joe Biden for president, was forced to retract a statement he’d made denying that Ringfield had attempted to run for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat against Lake and others. He said in a post on X on Wednesday, “In my haste, I got this one wrong and I apologize for that. Thank you, @CarolineWren, for your patience. And also, my apologies to @GarretLewis, @tomryanlaw, and anyone else lead astray.” [sic] He said he “got it wrong because the Walter who filed to run had a different suffix. … I apologize again for the confusion I caused.”
The Arizona Senate Republicans posted video surveillance of Ringfield allegedly illegally breaking and entering into the Arizona Senate a couple of weeks ago, where he also allegedly stole memorabilia coins.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Walter Ringfield, Jr.” by Walter Ringfield, Jr’s Facebook Account AlfonsoSunDevil. This photo is from October 2023.
