KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghanistan officials said 26 people across the country were killed in election day violence, although they hailed Thursday's vote as a success.



A woman dips her finger in ink to show she voted in Bamiyan, one of Afghanistan's more peaceful provinces.



Nearly 95 percent of the more than 6,000 polling stations across Afghanistan opened on Thursday, according to government and electoral officials.



Counting is under way but initial results are not expected for another 36 to 48 hours, while final results will not be certified until mid-September.



Officials extended voting until everyone waiting in line had a chance to cast their ballots.



"At some [polling stations] there is a very large line," said Azizullah Ludin of Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission. "We have to complete all these people that are coming here."



It is the nation's second presidential election since the 2001 fall of the Taliban.



Ludin said the decision to add more time to vote was because of a large turnout at some stations and technical issues that delayed voting for others.



There were no official details on voter turnout and it has been difficult to get an accurate count of how many Afghans voted in defiance of threats of violence from the Taliban.



CNN's Atia Abawi said election officials at one polling station in Kabul had already begun counting ballots after a low turnout when the order to extend voting reached them. Afghan voter turnout low as presidential election nears end »



When asked how many ballots had been counted, an election official said 1,000 -- which seemed high to the CNN crew that had been at the polling station all day. "We were there all day and we did not see 1,000 people," CNN's Kevin Flower said.



Election workers in central Bamiyan province immediately began reopening the polls after the order to extend voting.



"Election workers had put up security tape barriers and even tied down the flaps to their voting tents shortly after 4 p.m. local time," CNN's Ivan Watson reported from the province. "The security tape has been removed and voters are straggling in again."



Election observers from 30 groups -- both domestic and international -- said voting in Kabul province was fairly smooth, though a few reports surfaced of irregularities at various polling stations.



Afghans were electing a president from 40 hopefuls and 420 members of the provincial council in what was seen in the international community as a high-stakes test for the fledgling South Asian democracy.



The Taliban had vowed to disrupt the voting and the risk factor in some areas may have been too high for some Afghans to venture out to vote.  Watch an election monitor in Kabul discuss what's being examined »



The government ordered a ban on media coverage of incidents of violence in an effort to "ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people" as 300,000 NATO and Afghan soldiers were out in force to safeguard voters.



The independent Pajhwok Afghan News, which had announced it would not heed the media ban, posted online reports of deadly attacks across Afghanistan. CNN has not confirmed those incidents.



Afghan security officials said voting day violence claimed the lives of 17 Afghan policemen and soldiers, and another nine civilians.



An American service member was killed in a mortar strike in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said. It did not say where the attack took place.



Major fighting continued for a second day in the city of Baghlan, north of Kabul, security sources said. Rockets were fired at the town throughout the day, a day after heavy fighting that claimed the life of the city's police chief, the sources said. Afghans in Baghlan are afraid to leave their homes to cast their ballots, Afghan security officials said.



In the eastern city of Gardez, four rockets pounded the outskirts of the city, while a roadside bomb struck in another area, the local security chief said. There were no casualties from either incident.



But other parts of Afghanistan have been largely spared the daily drumbeat of car bombs, assassinations and whizzing rockets.



Enthusiasm filled the air as voters lined up to have their say
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