Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief of staff Miles Taylor has raised concerns about a U.S. immigration verification tool that he believes could significantly undermine voter security in American elections.
The immigration verification system, known as SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements), is being eyed by President Donald Trump as a means to control voter eligibility, according to Taylor’s recent column published on his Substack for DEFIANCE.org.
Taylor warns that SAVE would centralize voter verification in a manner that exposes it to cyber vulnerabilities not currently present in the decentralized state-by-state election system. For years, U.S. elections have successfully resisted large-scale hacking efforts due to their dispersed structure.
“What we are witnessing is a slow-motion horror,” Taylor remarked, asserting that Trump’s approach to this database could allow foreign hackers to impact elections on a massive scale.
Under SAVE, federal control over American elections would shift dramatically, placing the responsibility in the hands of a relatively obscure unit within the DHS. Taylor pointed out that this department, funded through immigration application fees rather than direct congressional appropriations, operates with minimal oversight.
“Offices like that tend to behave like fiefdoms,” Taylor explained, suggesting they can function independently and evade scrutiny, increasing the risk of misuse.
Originally designed to tackle benefits fraud, SAVE lacks the necessary architecture to handle voter eligibility verification effectively, Taylor contends. He highlights troubling instances where states improperly flagged citizens as non-voters due to errors in SAVE’s database.
For example, a Missouri case revealed that local clerks flagged numerous individuals as temporarily unable to vote without proper verification, a move based solely on SAVE data.
In another alarming incident in Texas, officials using SAVE identified nearly 2,700 voters as suspicious, later discovering that many of these individuals were, in fact, already verified as U.S. citizens.
“These errors have real-life consequences,” Taylor stated, emphasizing that the attempts to use SAVE for voter verification are disenfranchising some eligible voters while only flagging a minuscule percentage overall—about 0.01 percent of 35 million voters checked across seven states.
Taylor also recalled his time at DHS during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, noting how foreign actors attempted to penetrate voter databases across all 50 states.
“Our elections are not centrally coordinated, which is why foreign hackers couldn’t manipulate outcomes at scale,” he added, highlighting the decentralized nature of state-based election systems that make widespread tampering difficult.
However, Taylor warns that Trump’s proposed centralization could create a perfect target for cybercriminals, allowing them to flip a “master switch” that could render vast segments of the electorate ineligible all at once.
He highlighted the grave implications of such centralization, arguing that the party in power could wield significant influence over voter eligibility, exacerbating existing public distrust of the executive branch.
Taylor commended the states that have resisted turning over voter data to the federal government, positioning them as protectors of election integrity rather than obstacles.
The looming question remains: as Trump continues to push for the implementation of SAVE on a national scale, what will this mean for the millions of voters who could be wrongly flagged and disenfranchised?
As Taylor’s warnings echo across the political landscape, concerns about the security and integrity of American elections will likely take center stage as the nation approaches future elections.
The potential consequences of centralizing voter verification could redefine the landscape of voting rights and accessibility in the U.S., a situation that warrants close attention as it unfolds.
