However, the fact that a voter response rate of 58.73 per cent is near-record breaking will likely continue to fuel debate around the possibility of making voting in local government elections compulsory. 

The Labor Party say they are looking forward to working with local government.

Opposition local government spokesman David O'Byrne congratulated all the candidates who put their name forward.

“Putting yourself forward for public office takes guts, so congratulations to all candidates, who no doubt sacrificed time, energy and money to try and better their communities,” Mr O’Byrne said.

However, Mr O'Byrne said the voter return rates was not impressive.

“While some local government electorates had improved turnout from previous years, we should not be celebrating voter turnouts around 50 per cent," he said.

“Despite all the interest, effort and expense made to encourage people to vote, barely half of Tasmanians voted."

On the other hand, the state government was happy with the voter response rates, Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein said. 

“The government welcomes reports that Tasmania has recorded its strongest voter turnout for Local Government elections in more than 20 years,” he said.

He said making voting in local government elections compulsory was not a priority for the Liberal government at this time. 

Break O’Day council candidates were left in the dark until Wednesday afternoon after the Tasmanian Electoral Commission didn’t release any of the region’s candidate vote counts until about 1pm.

New-comers Lesa Whittaker and Kristi Chapple are expected secure themselves a spot at the table, and Ross Quinn is still remaining in the count. Mick Tucker, Kylie Wright, John McGiveron, Barry LeFevre, Janet Drummond, John Tucker and Glenn McGuinness look to have retained spots at the table.

Margaret Osborne, who was excluded from the count, has been representing the council for about 18 years. 

Many in the region were shocked about her not being re-elected. 

Ms Osborne has been a councillor and deputy mayor. She is also the president of the Hospital Auxiliary running the Tip Shop to raise funds for the new hospital. Ms Osborne decided to run again because she enjoys standing for her community. 

Tyler Birch, Bill Manning, Nick Landoulant, Brady James Young, Randy Wilson and Neville Rayner were also excluded.

The final count for the Dorset Council has seen newcomers Jan Hughes – secretary of the Scottsdale Rotary Club, small businessman Jerrod Nichols, Murray Lade – who is involved in local sport, mayoral candidate Edwina Powell, and heritage rail advocate Wendy McLennan secure a spot at the table.

While Wendy McLennan was not successful in her bid for mayor, she did receive the second-highest vote for councillor – an impressive achievement for a first bid. 

Greg Howard, Dale Jessup, Max Hall, Leonie Stein are the only returning councillors. 

Cr Howard easily remained in the mayor role, with Cr Jessup replacing Cr Hall as deputy mayor. 

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Greg Howard takes Dorset mayor with 64.07 pc of votes

Flinders has a new mayor in former school principal Annie Revie

Local government 2018 election coverage

City of Launceston council 2018 local government election

Flinders Council is the only northern council with 100 per cent of the vote counted. Annie Revie, Sharon Blyth, Peter Frank Rhodes, David Williams, Rachel Summers, Aaron Burke and Vanessa Grace will be the Flinders councillors for the next four years.

Only three incumbents on the former Flinders Council stood for re-election, and one of them has not made the cut: Chris Rhodes has been excluded.

Peter Rhodes and David Williams will both remain on council for the next four years, with David Williams also securing deputy mayor with 51.55 per cent of the vote. Besides those two there will be five new faces on what is a very fresh seven-member council, including first-timer Annie Revie as mayor.

It was incorrectly printed in The Examiner on Tuesday that Peter Rhodes was the incoming deputy mayor. However, the deputy mayor of Flinders Council has been confirmed as David Williams. 

Deputy mayor of George Town Council has been confirmed as incumbent Tim Harris, with 52.07 per cent of the vote. It was a tight race for both key positions in George Town: incumbent mayor Bridget Archer scraped in with less than 51 per cent of the vote, but has been confirmed and will remain in the position.

Incumbent councillor Debbie Wisby has been confirmed by the TEC as the next mayor of Glamorgan-Spring Bay.

She will replace outgoing mayor Michael Kent, who collected the lowest percentage of first preference votes out of the four candidates in the running.

Cr Wisby said she was feeling "relieved," and that she believed she had been elected because the community did not feel listened to under the former leadership.

She pointed to proposed mega-development Cambria Green, rezoning of land to be used by Tassal, and the multi-million dollar Buckland Dam, which is also in the pipeline, as examples of projects where the community did not feel they had an adequate say.

"There’s been a fair bit of angst in the community over the past couple of years on some larger decisions or proposals, and I think the council at some stage has lost its way on how to interact with people and show them respect, and to actually listen to their concerns," she said.

Cr Wisby said that under her leadership, non-permanent residents would be shown equal respect with permanent Glamorgan-Spring Bay residents.

"They were referred to as ‘shackies,’ things like that, you know... and that's just unacceptable.

"The other thing too is that my focus is on core business of council, because we have a lack of footpaths, we need improvements to our roads and storm water, and people would like to have some certainty on what's going to be done and when.”

Wayne Johnston is the new mayor of Meander Valley Council.

He received 56.88 per cent of the votes, with Susie Bower his closest contender on 43.12 per cent.

Michael Kelly has also been re-elected as deputy mayor receiving 50.08 per cent of the votes. His closest contender was Tanya King with 34.68 per cent.

Councillors Deb White and John Temple are fighting for the final spot on the council.

Cr Mary Knowles is feeling "really, really excited" after being confirmed as mayor of the Northern Midlands by the TEC Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday night Cr Dick Adams was leading the count for mayor, but Cr Knowles woke up with a huge swing in her favour, securing 54.21 per cent of the vote against Dick Adams' 45.79 per cent.

She said that outgoing mayor David Downie, who did not stand for re-election, had left the Northern Midlands in "really good stead."

"There's heaps of projects around the municipality that are underway and there's heaps of possibilities, things for youth and all the communities big and small.

"I want to make sure that any services that we deliver come with good financial management.

"We need to be really mindful of our heritage, we've got beautiful heritage and we need to support our unique towns and make sure this stays a really great place to live."

Cr Knowles has an order of Australia, and is also an inductee on the Tasmanian Honour Roll for Women.

Incumbent deputy mayor Richard Goss will remain in the role, edging in by a nose with 50.93 per cent of the vote against Janet Lambert's 49.07 per cent.

This is the third in a run of near-misses for Cr Lambert, who was less than three per cent away from collecting 50 per cent of the vote in the state election, the legislative council, and now for deputy mayor of Northern Midlands.

West Tamar Council could be the only Northern council to have an unchanged table of councillors. 

With 50 per cent of the votes counted, and Wednesday’s final tally, newcomer Jess Greene faces a nervous wait for the next update. 

She is the only candidate still remaining in the count.

“I’m feeling pretty nervous,” she said. “I think it’s unlikely that i will get elected, but i think I’ve done pretty well for a first time candidate.”

However, if Ms Greene is elected, it is likely Peter Kearney will lose his spot. 

But Cr Kearney said he was feeling okay. 

“It is what it is,” he said. “I guess because there hasn’t been too much of a change says that people are happy with what we’ve got.”