A good, bare-knuckle election day matchup can still draw a crowd.

The dearth of high-profile names on Saturday's ballots didn't keep voters from turning out in record numbers to a few heated elections in Hidalgo County.

Turnout approached 100 percent in Sullivan City, where voters selected a new mayor in a divisive race that spawned allegations of political retaliation.

In Edcouch, where a 25-year-old University of Texas-Pan American student was elected mayor, turnout in early voting surpassed total figures from the last election.

But with no important federal or state races on the ballot in local elections mostly devoid of star power, turnout was dramatically lower in other places.

In McAllen, barely 5 percent of registered voters turned out as incumbent Mayor Richard Cortez - by far the biggest name on the ballot in Hidalgo County - captured 83 percent of the vote.

Most other elections failed to top 2,000 voters.

In Weslaco, where Jerry Tafolla's victory for the Place 4 seat gave Mayor Buddy de la Rosa and his allies a majority vote on the City Council, a Weslaco East High School government teacher said she couldn't skip Saturday's election.

"I practice what I preach" to my students, said Laura Quintanilla after she voted in the city and school board races Saturday afternoon. "I vote in every election. I'd vote for the dogcatcher."

Only 16 cities and school boards hosted elections Saturday, following November's historic presidential elections that galvanized voter turnout.

Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Yvonne Ramon, whose office was contracted to run five elections, said lower turnout is expected when local races are the only ones on the ballot.

Other factors also contributed to lower turnout.

In some cases, candidates failed to draw any opponents, as happened with the three McAllen commissioner seats ostensibly up for grabs and in all of the Edinburg city races.

In others, those running for the seats were political newcomers or were relatively unknown.

While voter turnout was low in most elections, Ramon said there were no rampant reports of problems at many of the polls.

Her office fielded calls from residents who claimed they were not allowed to vote and made other accusations, she said. But the volume of calls was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Community members are exasperated with the situation," she said of Progreso, where the Texas Attorney General's Office continues to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the city's past two elections. The city decided to run its own election this time rather than contract with the county, so there wasn't much she could do.

A state monitor was on hand Saturday to observe activity at the polls in Progreso, which was plagued by problems in the last election.

Despite their presence, results were questioned even before the final vote was cast, as voters re-elected Progreso school board president Jose G. Vela Jr. and voted his ally, newcomer Raul Martinez Jr., into office.

More than 1,300 people voted in Progreso, nearly topping the number who cast votes in San Juan, a city more than six times its size.

San Juan voters booted out two incumbent City Council members, giving Mayor Pedro Contreras and his supporters the whole board.

In the McAllen school board race, two newcomers were voted into office, while Javier Farias was re-elected to a third term.

And in the Delta, one city voted for change while the other stuck with what it had.

A slate in Edcouch led by mayoral candidate Robert Tanguma Schmalzried used the youth vote and a family name to win election.

Schmalzried, 25, the grandson of a former mayor from the 1960s and '70s, soundly defeated incumbent Mayor J. Calin Guzman and City Councilman Eddy Gonzalez.

But in Elsa, voters chose to stick with the current makeup of the City Council, with incumbents Robert Escobar and Cain Caceres both winning re-election.

Turnout in both cities was more than double the turnout for their last municipal elections.

Flores de la Rodriguez, an Elsa resident who went to the City Hall on Saturday afternoon to cast a vote as candidates and dozens of others waited for results, said elections turn on a single vote.

"Every vote makes a difference," she said. "It matters. It really does."

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Monitor staff writers Ryan Holeywell, Sara Perkins, Jennifer Berghom and Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this story.