A Swiss canton has suspended its pilot of electronic voting following a failure to count 2,048 votes cast during national referendums on March 8. The canton of Basel-Stadt reported the issue last Friday, affecting approximately 10,300 residents living abroad and 30 individuals with disabilities.
Officials encouraged participants to submit paper ballots at town halls or polling stations, although they acknowledged that this option was not feasible for many voters. By the end of polling on Sunday, the e-voting system had successfully collected 2,048 votes; however, Basel-Stadt officials were unable to decrypt these votes using the provided hardware, despite the involvement of IT experts. Marco Greiner, a spokesperson for the canton, stated, “Three USB sticks were used, all with the correct code, but none of them worked,” as reported by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s Swissinfo service.
Investigation Launched
In response to the incident, Basel-Stadt has commissioned an external analysis and expressed deep regret over the violation of the political rights of affected voters. The votes in question represented less than 4 percent of those cast in the canton and were not expected to alter any election outcomes. Nevertheless, the canton has postponed the confirmation of voting figures until March 21 and has suspended its e-voting pilot until the end of December. Additionally, the public prosecutor’s office has initiated criminal proceedings related to the failure.
Impact on Other Cantons
The Swiss Federal Chancellery confirmed that e-voting systems in three other cantons—Thurgau, Graubünden, and St. Gallen—as well as the nationally utilized Swiss Post e-voting system, were not impacted by this incident. Switzerland is currently conducting small-scale e-voting pilots across four of its 26 cantons, aimed at facilitating voting for citizens living abroad, given the delays associated with postal voting.
Historical Context
This incident follows a previous attempt to implement e-voting in 2019, which was abandoned after researchers identified significant security flaws in the software’s source code. The recent referendums included questions regarding the availability of cash, with nearly three-quarters of voters approving a proposal to enshrine the Swiss National Bank’s mandate to provide physical cash and maintain the Swiss franc in the constitution. This decision comes despite Switzerland having one of the lowest cash usage rates in Europe, with only 30 percent of physical transactions involving cash in 2024.
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