Low turnout in southern Afghanistan

Polls will close in about 15 minutes in Afghanistan. They were originally scheduled to close at 4p.m. local time, but the government kept them open an extra hour -- an effort to boost what seems like a low turnout. That could actually bode well for Abdullah Abdullah, if this report by the New York Times' Carlotta Gall is accurate.

But initial reports from witnesses suggested that the turnout was uneven, with higher participation in the relatively peaceful north than in the troubled south, where insurgents threw up makeshift roadblocks in one area to warn off voters. In the southern city of Kandahar, witnesses said, insurgents hanged two people because their fingers were marked with indelible ink used to denote that they had voted. Other voters seemed defiant.

Abdullah's strongest support comes from the north, Karzai's from the south. Karzai will almost certainly pull in more votes than Abdullah -- but if turnout was low in the south, he might not clear the 50 percent threshold, forcing a runoff.