Resources For You & Your Voters with Disabilities

Cindy Piotrowski is currently the Director at the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Portage County.  She has worked for the agency since 2008. Prior to that she was the Director of the Epilepsy Foundation of Central and Northeast Wisconsin.  She currently serves on the Board for People with Developmental Disabilities and is the Secretary for the Aging & Disability Professionals Association of Wisconsin (ADPAW). Cindy is responsible for the successful management of the county department that administers a variety of community-based services and access to long-term care.  She aims to assist seniors and adults with disabilities to maintain physical and mental well-being, independence, safety and dignity.

Cindy will talk about how Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) can help coordinate rides to the polls for voters, provide information on acceptable identification, inform people of their right to vote, and work with clerks to get the word out to seniors and adults with disabilities.

Cheryl Orgas is the Executive Director of Audio & Braille Literacy Enhancement, (ABLE), an organization that puts material into braille, tactile and audio formats for blind and print disabled individuals. In existence since 1965, ABLE makes the printed word accessible. ABLE puts ballots into braille for the Milwaukee County Election Commission and can provide others with braille ballots as well. They have been transcribing braille ballots for well over 25 years.

Cheryl will talk about how clerks can order braille ballots from organizations like ABLE.

Anna Anderson has been working with people with disabilities for her entire career; spending the past 12 years at Disability Rights WI.  She advocated for those in long-term care for 10 years before moving into her role as the Voting Rights Coordinator.  She is also the co-chair of the Wisconsin Disability Vote Coalition.  It is Anna’s goal to help ensure voters with disabilities can participate in the entire electoral process.

She will be presenting on general voting rights for people with disabilities and highlighting various resources the DVC has that clerks can reference.  She will also be talking about the importance of the accessible voting machine and other ways clerks/poll workers can make voting more accessible.