As voting began, voters and election monitors reported problems in some areas, with a number of polling stations opening late and difficulties with the biometric voter verification equipment that was rushed in at the last minute.
"There are still many sites in the western part of Kabul that are not open. I've been waiting here for two-and-a-half hours but election workers say they're waiting for the voter lists," said Mohammad Mohaqeq, a leader of the Hazara community, which is heavily concentrated in the west of the capital.
But there were also people who hoped that their ballot could help improve their lives.
"I want candidates to serve the country and hear the voices of the disabled and the poor," said Abdullah, a wheelchair-bound voter in the western city of Herat.
"People ask what difference one person's vote will make but I say, if a million disabled people come out to vote, you don't think that will make a difference?"
Widespread allegations of voter fraud present a challenge to the legitimacy of the process, seen by Afghanistan's international partners as a vital step ahead of the more important presidential election next year.
Afghan politics is still poisoned by the aftermath of a disputed presidential vote in 2014 that forced the two main rival groupings to form an unstable partnership. Both sides were accused of massive electoral cheating.
Political sleaze has put Afghanistan near the bottom of Transparency International's world corruption index.
"Fraud, the abuse of power and corruption are going to be the main challenge, much more than security," said Aziz Rafiee, a political analyst and executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum.
Some 8.8 million voters have been registered but an unknown number, by some estimates as many as 50 percent or more, are believed to be fraudulently or incorrectly registered.
About 2,450 candidates are competing for places in the lower house, which has 250 seats, including one reserved for a candidate from the Sikh minority. Under the constitution, parliament reviews and ratifies laws but has little real power.
In a bid to ensure the vote is fair, biometric voter registration technology was brought in at the last minute.
But many fear the untested technology, which was still being distributed to provincial voting centres as recently as Thursday, will add to the confusion without eliminating fraud.
