Hi ryan,
I see a lot of people daying things and some are right some are not.
Your voting power is related to your Steem Power. The more Steem power you have, the more your vote is worth. Once you get above about 500SP you get a slider to adjust your vote, 1% to 100%.
Your reputation is affected like this, When someone upvotes you, you go up, if someone with higher reputation flags you you go down in rep. Also, reputation is an indicator of how much money you have earn through posts and comments. As you go up in rep it gets harder to go up. E.g going from 25 to 35 is easier than going 35 to 45. The highest rep out there currently is about 76. lowest is -19.
Build up your reputation by comment on other people's posts and creating a relationship with others around you...
Hope this helps. Good question. Keep working at it, you'll get there.
okay thank you I really appreciate your input I will try to work on these points and try to build up my reputation.