You were voting on the screen shot - each picture up for voting is exactly what was sent in... i did not edit the pictures at all. Which is why there's such a verity of photos, from small to large, and someone even snuck in 4 photos in one. But the only photo rule was it had to be 600x600 or less.
to vote, rate the picture. the rating number (1 through 5) doesn't matter. just rating it is the vote. If you click the 'top rating' link in the upper right, you'll see a listing of 'top 10 images by votes'.
I chose this method because I knew someone would complain they didn't have time to go through and 'rate' every picture. But then, I knew someone would complain about this method, too. I chose the what I considered the easier of the two methods available.