Councilwoman accused of forging signatures to help someone else qualify for ballot

The re-election efforts of a sitting city councilwoman in Michigan may be in jeopardy after she allegedly forged signatures on a petition in hopes of helping someone else qualify for the ballot.

Monique Lamar-Silvia, a 64-year-old pageant organizer and prison minister, is a member of the city council of Saginaw, Michigan, a blue-collar city of some 44,000 residents located about 100 miles northwest of Detroit. She is also among the 11 candidates currently vying this year for five seats on the council with four-year terms.

After examining those signatures, City Clerk Kristine Bolzman determined that at least three of the new signatures were not legitimate.

One local resident, Eric Eggleston, is not among those who qualified to run for a Saginaw city council seat in 2024, but Lamar-Silvia apparently did her best to help him try.

The official deadline for filing to run for the council was July 23 at 4 p.m. That day, Eggleston reportedly learned that he was six signatures shy of the 50 signatures required to qualify for the race.

Video footage captured inside and outside Saginaw City Hall shows Eggleston and Lamar-Silvia venturing to the building late that afternoon, less than an hour before the deadline, MLive reported.

Eggleston entered the building, took two more petition sheets, and went back outside to try and wrangle up six more signatures. Lamar-Silvia attempted to help him, video showed, though an official soon warned her that she had to step off the entrance ramp to do so.

Lamar-Silvia complied and eventually gathered at least one more signature for Eggleston. Carly Hammond, who is also running for a two-year partial seat on the council, happened to arrive at city hall at about that time and agreed to sign Eggleston's petition.

"I was there. I signed the petition. I was trying to help them as they rushing to get signatures," Hammond later told WJRT.

The clock was ticking though, and Lamar-Silvia eventually knelt down beside a concrete surface near the entrance of the building and began writing on Eggleston's petition sheets for some time, video indicated. She did also interact with some individuals during this time.

With just two minutes to spare, Eggleston submitted new forms with six new signatures. However, after examining those signatures, City Clerk Kristine Bolzman determined that at least three of the new signatures were not legitimate.

"It was evident that" the voters "had not signed the sheets themselves," someone from Bolzman's office wrote in a memo obtained by MLive through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Other correspondence from the office obtained by MLive revealed that staff there suspected that Lamar-Silvia had attempted "to falsify signatures on the nominating petition forms" after witnesses saw her "writing for a length of time on the petition sheet" "while checking her phone repeatedly."

Bolzman then contacted Michigan election officials about the incident, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office later confirmed that Lamar-Silvia remains under investigation.

Michigan law strictly forbids an individual from signing a petition with multiple names, and anyone caught doing so can be charged with a felony.

Lamar-Silvia did not respond to multiple requests for comment from MLive. Eggleston, however, defended her: "I fully support and stand with my Councilwoman."

Eggleston never ended up qualifying for the 2024 ballot. He is not the subject of any investigation.

Like the other Saginaw city candidates included on the unofficial Saginaw County general election list, Lamar-Silvia has no formal party affiliation.

H/T: Dave Bondy

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