Arizona election worker accused of stealing security device was hired despite felony theft arrest months prior

Court documents say Walter Ringfield, an Arizona election worker arrested for stealing a security fob from a tabulation center, was previously arrested.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, when pressed by a reporter, admitted that the suspect, 27-year-old Walter Ringfield, was in a felony diversion program – information that did not come up during a criminal background check conducted before he was hired as a temporary election worker.  Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace. 

"We’re not going to get into the specifics of this case at this point, but we do, for all of our temporary employees, and he was a temporary employee in elections, we do a criminal background check. And when we did that criminal background check, we did not find this. He was on diversion," Gates said. "It takes 2-3,000 temporary employees to run an election in Maricopa County. So security is very important."