Analysis from Cato’s Walter Olson of an emerging set of issues:

The controversy involves two different information formats often confused with each other that should be kept straight. Cast vote records are electronic summaries of individual ballots and the choices made on each, which may also carry additional information such as a timestamp of when the vote was received. These records can be of considerable interest to politics buffs. For example, they can reveal how persons who voted for a given candidate voted on other races—something you couldn’t necessarily deduce from conventional aggregated election results.

Ballot images go further: they are literal pictures of filled‐​out ballots, which means they also record stray marks and cross‐​outs, write‐​ins, coffee stains, and anything else that may have found its way onto the paper (you’re not supposed to write in the margins on your ballot, but some voters do, and even sign their names.)…

A new law enacted by the Minnesota legislature as part of wide‐​ranging election reform takes a middle course. It classifies ballot images themselves as sensitive individual data not to be released, but it directs that cast vote record (CVR) data be made public unless it falls into certain categories “likely to facilitate associating votes with particular voters, such as showing the order in which the votes were cast,” to quote one report.

One reason the landscape is changing quickly is that election administrators have scrambled to respond to a wave of public records requests for cast votes; election conspiracy buff Mike Lindell has urged his followers to file such requests. Some offices calculate that pre‐​emptively releasing the records to everyone would be easier than coping with the request barrage.