South Carolina voters are in for a surprise soon, especially if they aren’t familiar with comedian and political satirist Stephen Colbert and his peculiar brand of humor.

Colbert recently announced plans to “explore” a run for president in South Carolina on his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report.” Because of the announcement, Colbert was forced to sign over control of his super PAC, or political action committee, to fellow comedian Jon Stewart. The PAC put out its first advertisement under the direction of Stewart this week, an attack ad on (legitimate) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“The ad”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW0JTcYeKXg criticizes — quite humorously — Romney’s claim that corporations are people, along with his record of taking over corporations and dicing them up to sell off the parts. “If Mitt Romney believes corporations are people, then he’s a serial killer,” the ad states. “Mitt the Ripper!”

The ad is a farcical take on attack ads regularly put out by political candidates. To which we say: Good show, Stephen and Jon. Not only does the ad (and hopefully, those to come) poke a bit of fun at a ridiculous ad-driven election campaign, but the entire saga of Colbert’s pursuit and acquisition of his own super PAC have done a lot to expose the system for the comical level of flaws there really is.

The concept of a super PAC in modern day election campaigns is, to put it simply, insane. Regular PACs can only raise at most $5,000 per candidate per election. But 2010 gave rise to “super PACs,” which are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money, even from corporations. Made possible by two Supreme Court decisions, the super PACs have set the stage for a grossly nontransparent system. Not only are the groups unlimited by how much they can raise, but filing requirements dictate that these groups don’t have to disclose their funding until well after an election is actually over.

The non-cooperation rules that govern these new kinds of PACs are downright laughable. While super PACs aren’t allowed to coordinate directly with candidates, that’s not to say super PAC leaders have no connection to the candidates. The pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future is run by a former Romney campaign director. The pro-Rick Perry super PAC Make us Great Again is spearheaded by Perry’s former chief of staff Mike Toomey. So when Colbert announced on his show that he was handing over control of his super PAC to Stewart, the idea seemed laughable — after all, the Colbert/Stewart connection is obvious — but these kinds of relationships are common in real-life politics.

The day of the super PAC might have just begun, but it’s already unsettling. If their existence continues, we can look forward to a veritable blitz of attack ads and misinformation, none of which a candidate needs to claim responsibility for. But we thank Colbert and Stewart for bringing this nonsense to the center stage and exposing the flaws and loopholes involved to a generation of people who otherwise might have never paid attention to this new transformation in modern elections.