BRIDGEWATER — Residents opted to eliminate the elected office of lister and instead hire a professionally qualified assessor in a special town meeting Tuesday night that was organized by petition after two town listers quit. 

The item passed 68-11 in a meeting that lasted only about 30 minutes, Town Clerk Nancy Robinson said. Eighty of about 730 registered voters in Bridgewater attended.

Moving forward, the town will hire a professionally qualified assessor, a shift that several other Upper Valley towns have made in recent years.

The meeting was called by a petition submitted in early April after the same item failed following much discussion at Bridgewater’s regular Town Meeting in March.