CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Just one week from Election Day, the Nueces County website, which hosts all election and important court information, has been shut off.
The website domain known as Nuecesco.com has possibly been purchased by another entity, after the county did not meet the deadline to renew their website domain name, according to Nueces County Judge Connie Scott.
The judge told 3NEWS that they may never get the old domain name back.
"We were notified at midnight last night everything turned off or yesterday," she said. "A couple of people got notices there was a problem with the page, we thought it was maybe just an update. We later found the deadline went by and I am told someone else purchased our page, our domain."
According to a news release on Nueces County Clerk Kara Sands Facebook page, the new domain will be nuecescountytx.gov, but as of noon Thursday it was not operational.
This impacted everything from email, payments, job applications and looking up voting locations. Officials are advising residents who have tried to make a payment or send an email in the last 24 hours to call the office they are dealing with or show up in person.
Tax assessor/collector Kevin Kieschnick said trying to conduct business Wednesday was like taking a trip back to the early 1990s.
The downed website created a hectic day for employees in several departments.
Kieschnick said his office is taking precautions to protect data and customers.
"So we've shut all those payment lines down," he said. "Number one the public can't access it, we can't access it, but also have an abundance of caution to prevent someone from possibly, we don't know who has control of the domain at this point."
Scott said you can also contact departments through their social media pages.
This is a developing story, follow 3NEWS as more information becomes available.
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