The Tasmanian Electoral Commission began the count on Tuesday, with the final numbers for Launceston confirmed about  9.45pm on Friday.

Returning mayor Albert van Zetten and deputy mayor Danny Gibson will be joined by returning aldermen Janie Finlay, Hugh McKenze, Rob Soward, Karina Stojansek, and Jim Cox.

Former Greens MP Andrea Dawkins, who lost her seat at the state election in March has also joined the City of Launceston council, narrowly missing out on the deputy mayor position.

She is joined by new faces: Alan Harris, Nick Daking, Tim Walker, and Paul Spencer.

Long standing alderman Robin McKendrick was a late exclusion after preferences. Mr McKendrick joins Emma Williams and Simon Wood as former aldermen who did not retain their position.

Northern Tasmanians have been waiting anxiously for the results of the Launceston count, with preliminary results not posted until after 10pm on Tuesday.

The outcome of the mayor and deputy mayoral races was not finalised until Wednesday evening.

Tasmanian Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey said teams had worked hard to get a result.

“There’s a lot of data to enter. You’re looking at somewhere around four million keystrokes to data enter this twice,” he said.

“The way it works is you’ve got to put the rotation order in first, so that’s two keystrokes. You’ve got 34 candidates, which is times two because you’ve got two digits. 

“There are two digits at the end again to confirm the digits … so you’re looking at like 75 keystrokes just to process one ballot paper.

“There’s about 24,000 and they’ve all got to be done twice. It’s a very big process.”

Mr Hawkey said the data entry process was a faster and more accurate way than counting by hand.

“There are about 80 people at UTAS Stadium working on it through the day, and I think they’re making good progress, but it’s just going to take time,” he said.

Other councils awaiting results as of Friday evening included City of Clarence, City of Hobart and Kingborough Council. Mr Hawkey said all results should be finalised by Sunday.

Mr Hawkey said processing such a large number of votes was going to take time, and urged for the patience of communities still waiting to find out.

“We obviously are working on an accurate and correct result, and this is the best way to do that and certainly timely,” he said.

“I would think if we were doing them by hand, it would be two to three weeks to do, where with data entry its less than one.”

The West Tamar Council will be the only Northern council to remain unchanged. The municipality’s councillor positions were finalised on Friday morning, with all incumbents retaining their spots. Councillors Geoff Lyons, Richard Ireland, Lynden Ferguson, Carol Bracken, Rick Shegog, Tim Woinarski, and Peter Kearney kept their seats at the council table. They join mayor Christina Holmdahl and deputy mayor Joy Allen.