- 16 - Nos. 56 & 58 could be cured (id.; Sponsor’s Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1996, ch 709, at 16 [emphasis added]). Taken together, these reforms emphasize the legislature’s intent to eliminate, not ossify, the severe punishments for technical defects in petitions (see Cozzolino v Columbia County Board of Elections, 218 AD2d 921, 922-923 [3d Dept 1995]). Our legislatively-superseded caselaw predating those reforms furnishes a foundation thinner than quicksand for today’s decision. After two decades of experience with the strict compliance regime, both the legislature and the Governor lambasted “New York’s nationally notorious ballot access laws” and the “hypertechnical intricacy” of New York’s Election Law, which “set[] traps for the unwary” and “frustrate[d] democracy” (Sponsor’s Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1992, ch 79, at 29; Governor’s Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1992, ch 79, at 30). “Harmless mistakes on the petition forms [] no longer [] mean the end of a campaign” (Governor’s Mem, Bill Jacket, L 1992, ch 79, at 31). We must then view Ms. Seawright’s cured cover page and certificate of acceptance not in light of our precedent from the 1970s and 1980s but rather in the context of the legislative enactments sweeping away those cases: Ms. Seawright’s filing deficiencies are “harmless mistakes” that should not doom her candidacy, preventing voters from having their choice of candidate on the ballot. The majority provides no explanation for its disregard of the statutory language requiring substantial compliance and liberal construction with respect to designating petitions, arguing instead that we have not abandoned a strict compliance scheme. To support that proposition, the majority turns to Matter of Gross v Albany County Board of Elections (3 NY3d 251, 258 [2004]). That case, however, deals with an entirely different - 16 -