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by MertsA 2407 days ago
No it can't. Neutral is tied to ground at the breaker panel. So long as that breaker is turned off, and the neutral isn't accidentally being used as the neutral for another circuit, then there's zero current across the neutral wire back to the breaker panel. The only difference between neutral and ground on that circuit at that point is the color, check the resistance between neutral and ground and you'll find that they're basically a dead short.

Shorting the neutral to ground as well as hot has the benefit that under fault conditions the neutral wire can become electrically hot and if there's a miswired circuit that has current passing through it shorting it to ground would prevent a shock hazard from forming when you disconnect the neutral wire.