Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515441096 Page: 19 Date Filed: 06/04/2020 No. 20-50407 b. The state officials will likely succeed in showing that McDonald controls. Texas has similarly decided to give only some of its citizens the option to vote by mail. 29 That statutory scheme, which is “designed to make voting more available to some groups who cannot easily get to the polls,” does not itself “deny” the plaintiffs “the exercise of the franchise.” Id. at 807–08. The plaintiffs are welcome and permitted to vote, and there is no indication that they “are in fact absolutely prohibited from voting by the State.” Id. at 808 n.7 (emphasis added). So the right to vote is not “at stake,” id. at 807, and rationalbasis review follows, id. at 807–11. In the hopes of securing heightened scrutiny, the plaintiffs take a swing at distinguishing McDonald. They assert that here, unlike in McDonald, there is evidence that section 82.003 affects their ability to vote, given the risks of venturing outside the home to vote in person. Relatedly, they theorize that unlike the statute in McDonald, the Texas statute, TEX. ELEC. CODE § 82.003, distinguishes among voters on the basis of a supposedly unlawful basis (age). The plaintiffs also suggest that McDonald is out of tune with more recent voting-rights jurisprudence. The state officials will likely succeed in rebutting those contentions. It is true that “the Court’s disposition of the claims in McDonald rested on a failure of proof,” O’Brien v. Skinner, 414 U.S. 524, 529 (1974), but that cuts against the plaintiffs, not for them. The very same “failure[s] of proof” exist here, because, as explained, there is no evidence that Texas has prevented the plaintiffs from voting by all other means. Id. See TEX. ELEC. CODE §§ 82.001–82.004, 82.007; see also In re State, 2020 Tex. LEXIS 452, at *21 (“The history of absentee voting legislation in Texas shows that the Legislature has been both engaged and cautious in allowing voting by mail.”). 29 19