ABC News: “As states prepare to lock-in their Electoral College delegates by Tuesday night’s ‘safe harbor’ deadline, Justice Samuel Alito is feeding speculation that the U.S. Supreme Court could upend the 2020 election results in an eleventh-hour intervention. But experts say don’t count on it.”

“Alito sparked intrigue Sunday morning when he quietly moved up a key filing deadline – from Wednesday to Tuesday – in an emergency appeal brought by allies of President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. The change effectively keeps open the possibility of court action before the state’s delegates are set in stone. Still, legal scholars and court watchers said it remains highly unlikely that the justices will intervene, notwithstanding Alito’s move or the court’s new six-member conservative majority. ‘I would not read too much into this,’ wrote leading election legal scholar and University of California-Irvine law professor Richard Hasen on his Election Law Blog. ‘It shows more respect to the petitioners and does not make it look like the Court is simply running out the clock on the petition. I still think the chances the Court grants any relief on this particular petition are virtually zero,’ Hasen wrote. The court has still yet to respond to Pennsylvania Republicans’ separate, long-pending request that it take up a challenge to late-arriving mail ballots, and it has remained silent on Trump’s petition to formally join the matter as a party.”