SAN ANTONIO — Seth Eubank's U.S. History class is ripe with opportunity for students at Sam Houston High School to learn about the election of 2020. This historic voting cycle, down to its drawn-out culmination, is keeping the 29-year-old teacher's students asking questions.
Some of those questions are ones being asked by everyone else.
"'Why isn't this done yet? Why don't we know yet?'" Eubank recalled.
The history teacher said his students want to know more about candidate policy, mail-in ballots, in-person voting, Black Lives Matter issues and immigration—as well as how that all factored into Election Day as it slowly becomes Election Week.
But their biggest question since Tuesday: When will the country know who the next president of the United States. is?
"I'm actually waking up saying, 'Is it over yet?'" Levoela Wallace said.
Wallace and Jeremiah Ford are students at Sam Houston High who can't vote yet. But the 17-year-old seniors are still watching democracy in action.
"It seems like an entertainment show or something," Ford said.
Both students said they know people who did not cast a ballot.
"There's a lot of people I know personally who didn't vote," Wallace said. "They felt as if neither candidate was suitable."
Ford, running for class president at his school, said he felt like those who didn't vote should have even as a record number of registered voters did.
The students also wonder if the tabulations could be faster, as well as how 2020 will impact future elections.
"I wonder, 'Was my vote correct?'" Ford said. "Like, in that moment you know what you want to do. You know who you want in office."
Wallace believes the ongoing count may fuel unrest over the results.
"Every day, it's like this state is still counting," she said. "It's making a lot of people be on edge."
Ford is concerned about the same thing.
"People in the communities all over the country is like...are they going to, like, riot?" Ford asked.
Even though shadows of uncertainty cast doubt on the elections, Eubank encourages the students to trust the process.
"The process is there for a reason," the teacher said. "Their voice matters. Their vote matters. But also the process is there, and we can't just ignore it."