Pam Fessler
Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.
In her reporting at NPR, Fessler does stories on homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reports on what non-profit groups, the government, and others are doing to reduce poverty and how those efforts are working. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.
Fessler also covers elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She has done countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter identification laws to Russian hacking attempts and long lines at the polls.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fessler became NPR's first Homeland Security correspondent. For seven years, she reported on efforts to tighten security at ports, airports, and borders, and the debate over the impact on privacy and civil rights. She also reported on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, The 9/11 Commission Report, Social Security, and the Census. Fessler was one of NPR's White House reporters during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Before becoming a correspondent, Fessler was the acting senior editor on the Washington Desk and NPR's chief election editor. She coordinated all network coverage of the presidential, congressional, and state elections in 1996 and 1998. In her more than 25 years at NPR, Fessler has also been deputy Washington Desk editor and Midwest National Desk editor.
Earlier in her career, she was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly magazine. Fessler worked there for 13 years as both a reporter and editor, covering tax, budget, and other news. She also worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and was a reporter at The Record newspaper in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Fessler has a master's of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from Douglass College in New Jersey.
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Close ties between vendors and election officials are getting extra attention as states plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new voting machines by next year. -
The special counsel's report said the FBI believes Russian military intelligence was able to gain access to at least one Florida county government's computer network during the 2016 campaign. -
A new report by the Brennan Center found that automatic voter registration in states has given a big boost to voter rolls in states where it's been adopted. -
The Trump administration has proposed changing food stamp rules to require able-bodied adults without children to work 20 hours or more a week or lose benefits. -
Misleading claims, particularly about voter fraud, have intensified ongoing debates about voting rights and election security. Some election experts say the rhetoric erodes voter confidence. -
Some politicians claim that voter fraud is widespread. That phrase is often used more to advance political goals than anything else. Election officials say it undermines confidence in elections.
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A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine lays out how to cut child poverty in half in 10 years.
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Claims of massive illegal voting by noncitizens have routinely been disproved, but some noncitizens end up on the voter rolls, often by accident. Now, states are trying to fix that. -
A week and a half after the end of the government shutdown, low-income contractors are still trying to recover, while worrying that they might face another shutdown next week.
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For all the talk of "rigged" elections, cyberthreats, voter suppression and fraud, it's often poll workers who have the most impact on whether your voting experience goes well.
