As the polls open on Election Day, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump appears to be a dead heat, leading some to fear that the election will be dragged out and the U.S. Supreme Court could determine the outcome.
A handful of election-related disputes have already reached the Supreme Court. Last week, the court issued decisions that allowed Virginia to purge 1,600 people from its voter rolls, declined to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the ballot in two battleground states and allowed voters in Pennsylvania whose mail-in ballots had been deemed invalid to cast provisional ballots in person.
The question remains if the presidential election will be so close that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will take up a case in the days or weeks ahead that decides who the next president is.
It is unlikely that the Supreme Court ends up playing a major role in the outcome, according to elections experts, but it is possible. Here’s what to know….