Small votes are called dust votes, on a comment, it is required to have 0.02 cents before a comment will pay out (this is after curation). So small votes that don't bring a post to 2 cents after curation will be returned to the reward pool.
Prior to hard fork 20, votes under a certain amount wouldn't be allowed at all.
so it is only on comments. and i think this should be widely known because if you are under 500SP even on 100% you will not hit 2 cents. and people should know that so they don't throw away their VM thinking they are rewarding people for comments but all they are doing is spending mana.
I think it is for posts too, but I am not 100% sure on that one.
I do recommend looking at @dustsweeper, it will upvote any comments of yours that have votes that won't make payout. All you do is send them some steem (recommend just 1 steem) and any comments that are below payout will be boosted above payout. It's a non-roi service, but you make ROI by getting votes you would never have been paid out for. This could equal a few dollars a month to like $50 a month for a whale.
I can confirm it is for posts too.
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thanks both of you