Saginaw City Council member Monique Lamar-Silvia and former council candidate Eric Eggleston are facing serious charges related to alleged election forgery. The pair are set to go to trial, both accused of forging signatures on a nominating petition in a failed attempt to get Eggleston onto the 2024 November General Election ballot for City Council, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's recent announcement.
Lamar-Silvia, 64, is charged with one count each of Conspiracy To Do A Legal Act In An Illegal Manner, Election Law Forgery, and Signing A Nominating Petition With Multiple Names—as well as Signing A Nominating Petition With A Name Other Than Her Own, a misdemeanor. On the other side, Eggleston, 53, faces similar felony charges, including one count of Conspiracy and one count of Election Law Forgery, in addition to the misdemeanor of Signing A Nominating Petition As A Circulator When He Was Not The Circulator.
The allegations suggest that on July 23, 2024, Monique Lamar-Silvia unlawfully signed the names of voters on a petition to help Eggleston's push to earn a spot on the ballot. After this, Eggleston purportedly signed off on these forms falsely claiming he was the circulator before submitting the fraudulent documents to the city clerk's office right before the filing deadline.
The case has caught the attention of many residents in Saginaw, as the city looks on to see how the judicial process will handle these allegations of election misconduct. Pretrial dates for Lamar-Silvia and Eggleston have yet to be scheduled, and it remains to be seen how these charges will play out in court.
