The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office has filed a motion to dismiss a complaint alleging House Minority Leader Hugh McKean did not live in House District 51 as required by law.

However, the complaint is the second such incident in recent weeks to reveal problems with the state’s 2019 motor voter law.

Austin Hein, formerly the House GOP spokesman, and now a candidate for the HD 51 seat currently held by McKean, filed the complaint with the Secretary of State’s office last month. It alleged McKean lists a vacant lot as his home, raising questions about where the Loveland Republican who is running for his fourth and final term this year actually lives.

The Secretary of State’s Office’s Elections Division in their March 8 motion to dismiss said Hein alleged that McKean violated campaign and political finance laws by submitting an inaccurate or incomplete filing, specifically that the address on his voter registration is a vacant lot.

Hein also alleged that McKean listed a UPS Store mailbox as his physical and mailing address on his candidate affidavit. But that’s not a violation of campaign finance laws, the division letter said. Colorado Politics examined dozens of 2022 statewide candidate filings and found that using a post office or commercial mailbox as both the physical and mailing address is a common practice.

The Secretary of State’s office told Colorado Politics last month that the address on the affidavit is used to ensure the candidate gets notifications about campaign finance issues and not as a declaration of the home address.

The vacant lot is a different issue. State law does prohibit listing a vacant lot as a residence address, the division wrote. However, that’s a voter registration issue, not one tied to campaign finance laws. 

The issue with the vacant lot does raise questions about problems with the state’s motor voter law. 

McKean told Colorado Politics that he is building a home on the lot, which is in HD 51, but in order to obtain the key to a mailbox in the subdivision, he had to change the address on his driver’s license. He currently lives in an apartment in Loveland that is leased in his name, and has lived there for several years. The apartment is also in the district. 

Under Colorado’s to motor voter laws, once the address on a driver’s license is changed, voter registration is automatically updated to the new address, whether the person actually lives there or not. One law applies to new registrations; the other applies to updated registrations. 

The motion to dismiss comes the same week that 9News reported on a house in Keenesburg where 568 people listed that address as their residence. The report said 207 of those voter registrations are still active, although the Weld County clerk is working to list those registrations as inactive, which would take them off the voter rolls.

The Keenesburg registrations do not represent voter fraud, according to the report. They stem from student housing for out-of-state drivers who enroll in a four-week program at a commercial truck driving school. In order for students to get a commercial driver’s license permit, they have to list a Colorado residence. 

Once the motor voter law kicks in, letters are sent to the voters that gives them a chance to decline. The owner of the truck driving school told 9News he sends those letters back to the county clerk, who has been dealing with the problem since July 2019.

The Secretary of State’s office has not yet returned a request for comment on whether she is contemplating a fix. 

Hein told Colorado Politics that he believes election integrity is an important issue.

“I just find it odd that you can put a false address on a candidate affidavit form,” said Hein, who did not say whether he intends to appeal.

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Correction: The law that applied to Rep. McKean’s situation is a different one than the law that applies to the Keenesburg home. The 2019 law applies to new voter registrations, a 2018 law applies to updated registrations.