One person, one vote?

I guess it's up to the Labour Party to decide exactly how it runs its leadership election, but its strange voting system is getting a bit of flack in the papers today.

It seems as though many individuals have more than one vote for leader. This is possible because the vote is split between unions and socialist societies, who have 1/3 of the vote, MPs and MEPs, who have another 1/3, and party members, who have the final 1/3.

So if you are a party member, who's in a union and also a socialist society, then you've got 3 votes. According to the BBC, some people have as many as seven votes.

When Mandelson and the other modernisers got rid of the union block vote back in 1993 they did it under the banner of 'one member one vote', or its catchy acronym, OMOV. I'm not sure that this was what they intended.

I understand the system, but I worry that it looks corrupt. Perception is everything in politics. That people can vote more than once in the same election will give the public the impression that the result isn't even a fair reflection of the views of the Labour Party. It would be much better if they simply divided the vote up between MPs and MEPs on the one hand and party members on the other. If they are desperate to keep the unions, then give the leaders of the major ones votes equivalent to those of MPs and MEPs.