early this morning, president hameed karzai cast his ballot at a polling station in kabul. afterwards, he held up his instinct finger, a fraud prevention measure, towards the taliban. the taliban threatened to cut off the finger of anyone caught voting. abdullah abdullah cast his vote amid violence. in kabul, gunmen exchanged fire among a group of two men with suicide bombers. across the country, more than two dozen people were said to have been killed in election-day violence. all of this comes as a new poll of americans shows a slight majority, 51%, now say the war in afghanistan is not worth fighting. anand gopal is a reporter for "the wall street journal" based in kabul. >> reporter: the mood in kabul was very tense. there's been a lot of attacks in recent weeks and even today in kabul, there were a number of attacks across the city. and the streets are mostly deserted. there's a lot of police checkpoints. stores were closed. and, therefore, we saw low numbers going to the polls than we would see otherwise. the primary reason for the low turnout is because of the securi