The District Attorney for Colorado Springs, who indicted a Democratic senator on voter fraud tied to residency, has decided not to charge a Republican senator with committing a similar offense.

The case involves former state Sen. Dennis Hisey, who was elected to represent Fountain in Senate District 2 in 2018 but ran for a different Senate seat in 2022. 

On Oct. 12, 2021, the new state Senate maps were released by the redistricting commission. Nine days later, Hisey changed his voter registration to an address in Senate District 11. He filed for the SD 11 contest in December.

Last year, the Colorado Ethics Institute (CEI) asked District Attorney Michael Allen of the 4th Judicial District to investigate whether Hisey lived in SD 11, in Colorado Springs, or in SD 12, in Fountain. The group claimed he still lived in the SD 12 home.

Hisey told Colorado Politics last year the complaint is inaccurate.

“I am living in Senate District 11,” he said. “They’re trying to make political hay out of this. They do what they think they need to do to win, but we’ll surprise them.”

In 2021, Hisey’s Fountain home was drawn into Senate District 12, which already had two incumbent senators, Democratic Sen. Pete Lee and Republican Sen. Bob Gardner.

Gardner, however, was reelected to his second term in 2020, and, under state law, kept the seat. Lee, who faced a legal complaint about his residency, was therefore not able to run for reelection to that seat.

According to the Colorado Ethics Institute complaint, the home Hisey listed as his Colorado Springs residence was owned by a Thomas Luckett, who did not sell the property to Hisey. Nor was it listed as a rental.

The group claimed Hisey still lived in the Fountain home in Senate District 12, but that he voted in the June 22 primary from the Colorado Springs address, which is in Senate District 11. That’s potentially voter fraud, the group claimed, since he cast a ballot in the Republican primary in June 2022 in a district in which he did not live in. 

Allen’s office told Colorado Politics Friday that “after an extensive investigation and reviewing all the facts, the district attorney’s office is not filing criminal charges” against Hisey.

Some Colorado Springs Republicans raised alarms about Hisey’s residency. In an email in August 2022, John Pitchford pleaded with the chair of SD11 to call on Hisey to withdraw from the race, in part because he believed Allen would “put his thumb on the scales of justice for political purposes” and that potential conflict of interest could cost Republicans the Senate seat. 

Sen. Tony Exum, a Democrat, defeated Hisey for the SD 11 seat last November by 5.5 percentage points.

Hisey is now district director for U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs.

State law requires members of the General Assembly to live in the district they intend to represent one year prior to the general election.

Allen’s position on Hisey stands in stark contrast to his decision to charge Lee, the Democrat, with felony misrepresentation of his residency for voting purposes.

Allen sought and obtained a grand jury indictment against Lee last year for voting in the 2020 presidential primary using a rental property on Sheridan Avenue that he owns for his voter registration and for legal paperwork with the Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation.

The Sheridan Avenue home was in Senate District 11, which Lee represented until redistricting drew the address into SD 12. 

Lee also has owned a home on West Cheyenne Road since 1991, which is in SD 12, and the complaint alleged he and his wife live there. 

The indictment was thrown out by an El Paso County judge, based on erroneous information presented to the grand jury by the Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation. That office submitted an affidavit in August to the district attorney stating that Lee changed his address in December 2019 to the Cheyenne Road home. Lee had filed registration paperwork on that date but had not changed his address. 

The information was prominently cited at least five times in exhibits and PowerPoint presentations during the grand jury hearing by an investigator with Allen’s office.

In Boulder County, the Democratic district attorney filed similar charges in 2022 against a fellow Democrat, Rep. Tracey Bernett of Louisville.

Prosecutors charged Bernett last year with falsifying her residency in order to run for reelection to House District 12. Bernett was elected in 2020 to represent House District 12, but after redistricting, her home was drawn into House District 19. 

She rented an apartment in Louisville that was in HD12, but an investigation by the Boulder County District Attorney’s office found no evidence that this was her permanent home.

The investigation, which included five search warrants, found little to no food in the apartment’s refrigerator, few clothes in the closets, no evidence of a cat, which Bernett featured on social media, and no charger for her Tesla in the garage. An affidavit tied to the investigation said neighbors at the Louisville apartment complex said they did not know Bernett.

Bernett resigned in January as part of a deal with the district attorney and received a deferred sentence and two years’ probation.

Curtis Hubbard, speaking on behalf of Colorado Ethics Institute, said Friday that, “nearly a year after bringing our findings to the attention of the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s office, I’m disappointed to learn that they will not be bringing charges. I would hope that the DA’s office was as thorough in investigating this case as they were with similar cases.”

As of 2022, at least eight members of the General Assembly did not live in the districts they represented at one time or another, Colorado Politics has reported.

This story was updated with comments from the Colorado Ethics Institute.