When a measure that would grant the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives fell three votes short of making it through the Senate, voting rights advocates were both frustrated and hopeful. Frustrated because the Senate’s arcane rules of procedure allowed three senators to hold up legislation that had overwhelmingly passed the House; hopeful because whether through intense cajoling or electoral victories, three new votes aren’t impossible to come by.

With the recent Democratic gains in the Senate, will we be able to get those three last votes we need to pass the legislation and finally gain a voting seat in the House? It looks like it.

The Democrats picked up five new seats: Mark Udall in Colorado, Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Tom Udall in New Mexico, Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Mark Warner in Virginia. Assuming they stick to the party line, that’s a net gain of five votes. News today finds that Oregon’s Gordon Smith has conceded to his Democratic challenger, so that’s one more vote for the cause — six in all.

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