A method includes receiving a voter list, and receiving a plurality of different types of ballot images. The cross section of the lifting slat in the width direction has the same shape as that of the main slat in the width direction. The flowers are very small with petals having a pale purplish pink color with deep reddish purple vein, and have a plentiful number of flower in a spike. A reduced range block preparation section reduces the range block image to the domain size to generate a reduced range block image. In other embodiments, a graded smoothing region is used to improve the surface characteristics. One particular input signal has a particular analog value and the analog-to-digital converter uses a fixed reference to convert the particular analog value to a particular digital value.