(CNN) -- Only two Republican presidential candidates will appear on the ballot in Virginia next year, regardless of how many are in the race. 

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will have the Dominion State all to themselves. Supporters of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann will have to be content with yard signs or donations as ways of cheering on their favorite would-be nominee. 

That's because their campaigns failed to gain the requisite 10,000 signatures. It is, to be sure, a self-inflicted wound, a measure of some organizational chaos. But it is also a function of illogically restrictive local laws. They not only impede ballot access but end up denying open representative democracy to operate on the road to the Oval Office. 

The United States is the only nation in the world, save Switzerland, that does not have uniform federal ballot access laws, according to Ballot Access News, a website run by Richard Winger that is dedicated to the issue. This may reflect the country's closely held federalism, but it can create chaos in a presidential year. In many cases, the rules are imposed by state party bosses who are less interested in democracy than in rigging the system to benefit their favored candidates. 

Take, for example, my home state of New York. It votes reliably Democratic in presidential years, at least since Ronald Reagan thrashed Walter Mondale in 1984. But the state's primary delegates can still be a prize in a protracted Republican nomination fight. In 1999, John McCain had to sue to even have his name appear on the ballot alongside George W. Bush because the Republican state party chair and his committee essentially decided that Bush would be their nominee without the inconvenience of putting it to a vote. Local laws allowed them to restrict ballot access until public pressure and a court injunction overruled their attempted end-run around democracy. Each presidential cycle, the corrupt kabuki continues. 

1. Who are the two people on the ballet?
2. Why didn't the others get on the ballot?
3. What countries do not have a federal ballot access law?
4. Who said that?
5. Whose it run by?
6. What side does New York vote?
7. What party is John McCain?
8. What about George W. Bush?
9. What is the nickname for Virginia?
10. What do the ones who did not get on the ballet have to do to get votes?
11. How many have to do that?
12. Is the law unrestrictive for them?
13. What year did McCain have to sue?
14. What year did Reagan win his election?
15. Who did he win against?
16. What party was he?
17. What state does the author reside in?

Provide a numbered list of answers.
1. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul
2. their campaigns failed to gain 10,000 signatures.
3. United States and Switzerland
4. Ballot Access News
5. Richard Winger
6. Democratic
7. Republican
8. Republican
9. Dominion State
10. yard signs or donations
11. Five
12. No
13. 1999
14. 1984
15. Walter Mondale
16. Reagan was Republican.
17. New York