(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.

Answer the following questions:
1. What state is the Dominion State?
2. How many republicans will show up on the ballot?
3. How many signatures are needed to get on?

Numbered answers:
1. Virginia
2. two
3. 10,000