Staff

Dan Pederson---Program Coordinator

Dan has been a volunteer with Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota since 2008 and a staff member since 2013.  During the 2012 election, he worked with Minneapolis Elections and Voter Registration where he got a behind-the-scenes understanding of the process for training election judges, preparing voting equipment and processing absentee ballots.  He has served as an election judge in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

After a career as a reference librarian serving academic and public libraries, Dan founded Pederson Research Services, Inc., a research service that served the information needs of the business and nonprofit community until 2012.  He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Library Science degree from Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

You can contact him by email at dan@ceimn.org  or by phone at 612-724-1736.

Board of Directors

Carol K. Johnson-- Co-author of Facts About Ineligible Voting and Voter Fraud in Minnesota Based on data from Minnesota County Attorneys has been promoting and protecting voting rights for over 40 years through her volunteer work at CEIMN, the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance, and the League of Women Voters. She’s been an election judge since 1994, and has served as Chair Judge at a Minneapolis precinct. Ms. Johnson was a Minneapolis City Council Member from 1986-1993 and, from 1972-1985, served as campaign chair for several political campaigns. She notes that, “a system that protects the right of all citizen’s access to the vote, to express, through their vote, their hopes and beliefs for a better future for themselves and their country. This is the core of American democracy.”

Ms. Johnson’s education includes a certificate, Senior Executives in State and Local Government from Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in public administration in Metropolitan State University.  She enjoys spending time with family, friends, gardening, cooking/baking, playing bridge, reading, photo albuming.  She’s been married to Warren (60 years), and is mother of four adult children, grandmother of 11 adult grandchildren, and Great-Grandmother of four grandchildren.

Mark Halvorson (Chair), is the founder and former director. He has observed five statewide recounts, six statewide audits and has recruited and trained many non-partisan observers.  In 2007 Mark helped to organize the first national Audit Summit.  He created the audit and recount state laws searchable databases and was an executive editor of Principles and Best Practices of Post-Election Audits as well as Recount Principles and Best Practices.  He served on the Brennan Center Audit Panel, the National League of Women Voters audit working group and is a member of Verified Voting's Board of Advisors.  He has also spoken at several national conferences including annual meetings of the National Conference of State Legislators.  He is a contributing editor of Risk Limiting Audits: Why and How.  Mark was the recipient of the Election Verification Network's 2017 John Gideon Memorial award for his long standing and highly effective advocacy for election integrity.

Iris Kiedrowski (Secretary), is a retired nurse (since 2000), married, mother of 3, grandmother of 4. She has been involved in her community in many ways, some of which are: as the head of PTAs and the School fundraising organizations when her children were young; served on the Metropolitan State University Foundation Board for 9 years, and chaired the Metro State Scholarship committee for 12, currently is an Emeritus on the Board; served on the Board of Theatre de la Jeune Lune for 3 years; taught ESL through the Minnesota Literacy Council for 4 years; has been an election judge since 2000.  She loves hanging out with her grandkids, all forms of cooking and baking, gardening, golf, reading, traveling….whatever comes her way!

Deb Most (Treasurer), currently works for the Grain Elevator and Processing Society in Minneapolis.  She has been as an election judge in both Ramsey and Dakota Counties, starting in 2004.   Deb also has served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Latvia.  Her volunteer activities have included serving on the Board of the National Peace Corps Association and the Saint Paul Jaycees.  Deb has an MBA from St. Thomas University and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. Originally from East-Central Wisconsin, she has been a Minnesota resident for the last 15 years.

Stan Hilliard--is a graduate of the University of Minnesota in Chemical Engineering. He worked for 3M Corporation as a laboratory scientist. Under the auspices of the American Society for Quality, he taught sampling methodology and statistical experiment design in Minnesota area colleges. His motivation for working on elections was the breakdown of presidential election systems in Florida (2000) and later in Ohio (2004). He was a CEIMN volunteer observer for Minnesota's first post-election audit in 2006 and has continued to observe at several other audits. He has also been an observer at election recounts, voting machine calibrations, and the manual counting of rank-choice (RCV/IRV) ballots.  He performed a statistical analysis to help determine the size of the discrepancy in the sample that should trigger a total recount. 

Stan and his wife Barbara are co-owners of H & H Servicco Corp. Stan also runs the website samplingplans.com, which provides instruction and software for designing statistical acceptance-sampling plans and Audit Sample Planner. He and Barbara enjoy taking day trips around Minnesota and Wisconsin, and participating in community activities, including 12 years with the Camp Courage Wagon Train. According to the Gallop Strengths Finder, Stan's highest three strengths are Learner, Analytical, Connectedness.