With Nov. 5 rapidly approaching, it is more important than ever to become informed about who and what is on the ballot. Castle Country Radio is seeking out different viewpoints as to what matters most to the voters this year. Due to this, we sat down with State AARP Director Alan Ormsby to talk about what issues matter most to retired voters in this year’s election.
Before his role as State Director, Ormsby served as the Director of the Division of Services for People with Disabilities (DSPD) leading Utah’s efforts to provide the best possible services for people with disabilities. Before serving as the DSPD Director, Ormsby was the Director of Aging and Adult Services at the State of Utah, and in this role was responsible for statewide home- and community-based services for Utahns 60 and over.
The first major issue Ormsby cited was Social Security,” People work hard for Social Security. It’s their money. They’re concerned about that and making sure that is available to them.” Another issue is that of caregiving,” Caregiving is another huge issue, whether it’s caring for your spouse, caring for your parents or your kids. That’s a really big issue.”
The last issue Ormsby spoke on was property taxes, something that within the Castle Country Area that has caused a lot of contention in recent years. “We’re seeing a lot of people talking about property taxes. It’s exciting that people’s property values are going up. But that makes property taxes much more expensive. And so that’s one of the things that our members are telling us that they’re concerned about.”
Polls indicate that the 2024 election might see one of the largest voter turnouts in recent memory. A lot of this comes with college campuses pushing the message to vote and social media campaigns that target a younger demographic. This has led to experts speculating that the younger generation may decide this election, but Ormsby has another theory,” if history is any indication, it will be the older adults who make decisions about the election. In our last election, for example, about 51 percent of all the voters in Utah were over 50. That’s about 554,000 voters in Utah who voted over the age of 50. And we encourage everyone to vote, but we also want to see our politicians pay attention to the needs and the issues that are impacting older people in the state.”
Another obstacle that older voters, as well as voters of all ages face, is that of misinformation. We asked Ormsby where voters can find reliable information on this upcoming election. “ There’s a lot of bad information out there. So AARP Utah tries to be a reliable source of nonpartisan information about where to vote, when to vote, and what the deadlines are. So we’ve got a great website that should be easy to reach. It’s aarp.org/utvotes.”
Closing us out, Ormsby left us with a simple message,” every election is important, but this is a big one. Get out there and vote. There’s no excuse for not voting. So we encourage everyone to do their civic duty and vote.”