As long as there is $0.01 with any vote on any comment or post, the vote is not dust, it counts for sure. You do not have to get to $0.03 for you to receive a reward. Where did you get that information?
I do not disagree with your tactics, they are perfectly fine, and well within the realm of self-voting minimally. I am just curious where you learned that a comment/post must be at least $0.03 to obtain a reward?
To tell the truth, for a comment to receive the reward, the vote must be at least $0.02. Total votes below this value are simply considered by steemit as dust and they don't receive the rewards. That is why @dustsweeper was created. Go there and they will explain exactly what happens with this votes.
huh, I was always under the impression that dust votes had to be $0.00. I will look into this further, learn something new every day :-) Thanks buddy.