A Swiss canton has suspended its pilot of electronic voting after failing to count 2,048 votes cast in national referendums held on March 8.

Basel-Stadt announced the problem with its e-voting pilot, open to about 10,300 locals living abroad and 30 people with disabilities, last Friday afternoon. It encouraged participants to deliver a paper vote to the town hall or use a polling station but admitted this would not be possible for many.

By the close of polling on Sunday, its e-voting system had collected 2,048 votes, but Basel-Stadt officials were not able to decrypt them with the hardware provided, despite the involvement of IT experts.

"Three USB sticks were used, all with the correct code, but none of them worked," spokesperson Marco Greiner told the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation's Swissinfo service.

The canton has since commissioned an external analysis of the incident, adding that it deeply regrets the violation of affected voters' political rights.

Huh. A functioning government apologizing for disenfranchisement.