Lori Stacey, Consti-spiracy-Theory Party Candidate for Secretary of State

The South Dakota Constitution Party will have its lawsuit challenging candidate petition signature requirements laughed out of court next week. (O.K., so U.S. District Court Judge and MHS debate alum Roberto Lange will probably have enough class not to laugh out loud.)

But the Constitution Party still promises comic relief through the rest of the 2010 election season, courtesy of the one candidate they managed to muster for the statewide ballot, Secretary of State candidate Lori Stacey. Attentive readers will recall Stacey as the woman who not only lacks basic counting skills (a rather important qualification for someone in charge of elections) but also adheres to the following tenets of beyond-Glenn-Beck paranoia (and I quote Stacey's five points verbatim from a September 2009 e-mail):

1. The dollar will be replaced by an IMF World Currency.
2. Bush signed documents in March of 2005 to merge the US with Canada and Mexico BY 2010, they will pretend that is an all of a sudden solution when our economy crashes very soon.
3. 9/11 was a complete fraud and vehicle to terrorize our own citizens into giving up our freedoms in the name of security.
4. FEMA is not your friend!
5. As one human being to another, DON'T TAKE ANY VACCINE.

Hmm... calls 9/11 a trick by Uncle Sam, denies science to flog hysteria that may be killing babies, and expects North American Union to happen this year (six months down, and I'm not speak Spanish or Quebecois yet, eh?). Oh yeah, and she promotes an online film denying the existence of Jesus. With candidates like Lori Stacey, it's no wonder the Constitution Party can't recruit enough members to collect 250 signatures for a gubernatorial candidate.

Stacey appears to buy into the birther craziness (perhaps not unlike our current Secretary of State?). On her blog, she writes, "We must never again allow any Presidential Candidate onto any ballot in South Dakota that can not prove they are Natural Born as our Constitution demands." But at least she's an equal opporuntity birther: she believes that neither President Barack Hussein Obama nor Senator John McCain is a natural born citizen. It's all one big conspiracy, Democrats and Republicans, working together... to elect foreigners?

Like so many other talk-radio-karaoke posers, she vows in her campaign URL to Take America Back... but from whom? Chris Nelson? The Rounds-Daugaard Administration? Commie atheist punks like me who are natural-born citizens but don't deserve to be since we disagree with the Constitution Party?

Now I can sympathize with Stacey's concerns about electronic voting machines and the potential for abuse. She wants to ban electronic voting machines completely. My man Congressman Dennis Kucinich has expressed similar concerns. Update 14:40 CDT: Bob Mercer notes Stacey's proposal to go back to hand-counting every ballot. I'd love to hear the conservative Stacey's fiscal analysis of how many more people county government will have to hire to eyeball all those ballots. (Next headline: Constitution Party Backs Bigger Government?)

Stacey agrees with Kucinich and me that the Patriot Act is really, really bad. I can also sympathize with Stacey's complaint that the two major parties have too much control over the electoral process. I would like to see Independents and new parties have a fairer shot at establishing themselves and participating in the election process and government. But all the ballot reform in the world won't help fringe conspiracy-theorist candidates like Lori Stacey establish their parties as credible political forces.

I can't wait to see this woman on a stage answering questions next to Ben Nesselhuf and Jason Gant. Try not to laugh, fellas.