Why Jan Canganelli Fights for Every Woman’s Vote

When Janice Maria Canganelli talks about her family, her voice carries both pride and a quiet ache. Her grandmother, Mary Ethel Swain—who applied under the moniker M.E. Swain—was accepted into medical school in the early 1920s—an almost unheard-of achievement for a woman at the time. But when she arrived for her in-person interview, the door slammed shut. The committee told her women weren’t allowed.

Instead of becoming a doctor, she became a public health nurse, tending to the sick and injured when women were still expected to stay home. Jan’s mother became a teacher, and her maternal grandmother—despite living in deep poverty—insisted that every one of her children attend college. In Jan’s family, education and service were non-negotiable. And equality? That was the goal, even if it seemed impossibly far away.

Those lessons took root in Jan early. While teaching at Indiana University, she worked to connect students with life-saving health resources, such as the HPV vaccine. Later, she turned her focus to one of the most fundamental tools for equality: the right to vote.

Today, Jan spends her time in communities helping Hoosiers register to vote—particularly single women, migrants, and people of color. She has learned that the biggest barrier isn’t always knowing how to vote. It’s fear.

“When I ask people why they don’t vote, it’s rarely about the process,” Jan says. “It’s fear—fear their voices won’t count, fear of repercussions, fear born from mistrust in the system.”

That fear has roots. Ballots sometimes go missing. Rules change. And for many in marginalized communities, decades of exclusion and discrimination have taught them that the system wasn’t built for them.

But Jan knows the stakes. Indiana ranks at the very bottom in the nation for voter turnout—just 41.9% of eligible Hoosiers cast a ballot in the 2022 midterms. Women in Indiana vote at rates below the national average, with around 60.7% participating in recent elections. The state’s gender pay gap—women earning just 75.6% of what men earn—means women are disproportionately affected by policies decided at the ballot box.

Young people, too, are largely absent from the polls. In the 2022 midterms, only about 15% of eligible 18–29-year-olds in Indiana voted—far below the national youth turnout of 23% and light years behind states like Michigan and Colorado, where more than a third of young voters showed up.

Jan sees these numbers as both a warning and a call to action. Every policy that touches women’s lives—equal pay, workplace protections, reproductive healthcare, childcare access, education—comes down to who is in office. And who is in office comes down to who shows up to vote.

“Everything I’ve read—and lived—shows we won’t have equality until women are uplifted at home, in the workplace, and politically,” Jan says. “We’ll never be equal until women are equal to men. The ballot box is one of the strongest tools we have to promote our own welfare and wellbeing.”

For Jan, registering voters isn’t just civic engagement—it’s an act of love for the women who came before her and the ones who will come after. She knows that in every election, there is a choice: to be silent or to speak.

Her message to Indiana women—especially those who have been marginalized—is simple and urgent: “Your voice matters. Your vote matters. And if enough of us stand up together, we can change this.”

Jan Canganelli is a lifelong advocate for women’s rights and civic engagement, inspired by generations of strong women in her family who fought for education, opportunity, and equality. Today, she continues that legacy by working to increase voter participation among women, young people, and underrepresented communities across Indiana.

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