The county Legislature's Government Operations Committee advanced a resolution authorizing the chair, Legislator David Gould, to apply for a new domain name. Lawmakers are hoping to secure cayugacountyny.gov to replace the existing Internet home, cayugacounty.us.
Tom Bunn, the county's chief information officer, told legislators Wednesday the shift to a .gov domain will be completed in phases and start with the local Board of Elections. That is due to a state Board of Elections cybersecurity regulation mandating local boards to use .gov domains "for email communications and web traffic to the extent practicable."
"We're going to set it up in tandem with the cayugacounty.us address and then we'll use email aliasing and (a website redirect)," Bunn said. "Both will maintain and operate in tandem and then when we finally get ready to cut over, we can do that as a planned implementation."
The county website's address has been cayugacounty.us for more than a decade. Before that, it was co.cayuga.ny.us.
A fact sheet issued by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency encourages state and local election offices to use .gov domains for their websites. Using a .gov domain helps the public identify the website as a "trusted government source," according to the agency. It also helps with security.
The county Legislature's Government Operations Committee unanimously approved the change. It must clear one more committee, ways and means, before the full Legislature votes on the resolution.
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