Despite several weeks of huffing and puffing about disrupting Afghanistan’s election to decide the next president and provincial council representatives, the Taliban had a poor showing today. There were 73 recorded acts of violence in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces; 27 people were killed on elections day, including eight Afghan soldiers, nine police officers, nine civilians, and one US soldier. Security forces stopped suicide bombers in Kabul while small arms attacks were suppressed in Paktika and Baghlan.

It’s not that the Taliban lacked targets; there were almost 7,000 polling sites the Taliban could have hit. The Taliban only succeeded in blocking polling in eight of Afghanistan’s 398 districts. Those eight districts were already deemed to be under Taliban control.