COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose sent out a fundraising request disguised as an important letter, confusing and upsetting voters.

Normally, Bill Joiner just throws political mail aside, but this one looked official. Obtained by News 5, the letter's return address states "Secretary of State Frank LaRose." Beneath it, "DO NOT DISCARD OR DESTROY," also including "REGISTERED DOCUMENT ENCLOSED."

"I thought it might have to do with the legitimacy of my enrollment to vote," Joiner said.

Current Ohio law allows the Secretary of State to remove the registration from inactive voters. A way to find out if they are inactive is if they don’t respond to government mailings.

RELATED: How to find out if your voter registration was removed in Ohio’s mass purge

But much to Joiner’s surprise, it ended up just being a voter poll and request for money from LaRose. The options range from $50 to $5,000 and also leave room for the voter to choose any amount.

"I've been horrified by it and thinking that LaRose is using his office in this way, taking advantage of his position," he said. "It was an attempt to mislead me."

The Cincinnati registered Democratic voter isn't sure how he got the request, clearly meant for Republicans. News 5 spoke to six Republicans about it, all of whom felt the same way.

News 5 tried to speak with LaRose, but he was unavailable. The secretary addresses voters in the letter and signs it.

"My name is Frank LaRose, and I'm Ohio's hard-charging, conservative Secretary of State," LaRose wrote. "My most important job is raising three daughters with my beautiful wife Lauren, but serving as your Republican Secretary of State is a close second!"

The letter goes on to say, "Having run for statewide office twice, I know how challenging and expensive a winning political campaign is. Your gift of $50... will help meet expenses like running ads to expose the Biden Democrats' terrible record of woke socialism, identify swing voters who can be persuaded to vote for conservative Republican leaders up and down the ticket, and much more."

Atiba Ellis is a nonpartisan election law expert and he said LaRose technically didn't break any laws.

"This letter could be seen as, 'That sort of look sketchy,' and maybe it's an unfair advantage here, but isn't really illegal," Ellis said.

In the fine print, the letter shows it is a collaboration between LaRose and the Leadership for Ohio Fund, a 527 political group. Working with such a group would be illegal for candidates, which is the bigger issue Ellis sees with the letter.

What makes it legal is that the secretary hasn’t declared candidacy yet. He is expected to join the 2024 U.S. Senate race.

"This gets into the sort of slippery gray area of is it just really fundraising or is it trying to campaign without saying you're trying to campaign?" Ellis added.

LaRose would need to fundraise if he decides to announce he is running, which this money could help with.

As of right now, everything in this letter is legal.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s elections chief on Monday referred for possible prosecution 117 apparent noncitizens who either registered to vote or cast a ballot last year — a tiny fraction of the state’s electorate and a significantly reduced number from two years ago despite record 2020 turnout.

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that of those, 13 cast ballots and 104 registered but did not vote. They were identified as part of a routine review and referred to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“The bottom line is this: Citizenship matters. It’s an important status that we should all treasure,” LaRose said at a Statehouse news conference. “With that, comes the ability to be a voter. We want all Ohioans who are eligible to be able to cast a ballot, but certainly that means only citizens are able to do so.”

Ohio has more than 8 million registered voters. Ohio does not allow noncitizens to register or vote.

LaRose made a similar referral of 277 individuals to Yost after the 2018 election, including 77 who cast a ballot. Only a handful were ever prosecuted, according to data from the Franklin County prosecutor’s office.

Ohio produced an extraordinary level of access in last year’s presidential election, setting records with nearly 6 million votes cast and a 74% turnout that tops the average of the past 20 years.

LaRose said citizenship could be checked at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles under changes he is advocating to a sweeping election reform bill pending in the state Legislature.

He said he would like to see the bill adjusted to allow more access to drop boxes at county boards of elections, a position shared by the Ohio Association of Election Officials.