At the same time he faced accusations that he acted in violation of state campaign finance laws, Forward Kansas, a liberal-leaning news website, reported that Mike Sager, Campaign Finance Director for the Steineger secretary of state campaign, had been "indicted for a felony count of stealing from his campaign funds and, also, a misdemeanor count of filing false campaign finance reports in order to subsequently cover up the theft." Steineger admitted to the Kansas City Star that when he originally hired Sager, he was not aware of his past. Since discovering that, however, he had since fired him as his campaign treasurer. Two days after the story was published, he refused to take questions on the matter with another online news source and sent a campaign spokeswoman to "dodge questions."

Not long after launching his campaign for secretary of state, the Kansas State Ethics Commission accused Steineger of violating the state's campaign finance laws. Along with being implicated for using financial contributions from his state senate campaign to pay for poll conducted on behalf of his secretary of state committee, he faced being charged with infringing on a state law that "prohibits [state] politicians from seeking contributions from lobbyists, corporations, unions and political action committees while the Legislature is convened from January to May." Several days after these allegations were first reported, Steineger said that "a preliminary review of emails sent on behalf of his campaign for secretary of state indicated requests for donations went to several registered lobbyists" and that he would take full responsibility for the actions of the campaign. On Tuesday, May 18, 2010, the Kansas State Ethics Commission ruled that Steineger "improperly used his Senate campaign fund to pay for polls testing his name recognition ahead of a possible run for statewide office." At the same time, however, the commission was unable to find sufficient evidence to say he knowingly violated state campaign finance laws by requesting contributions from lobbyists while the State Legislature was still in session. Steineger was then ordered to pay a fine of $5,000.