I often receive private e-mails with queries about election law issues from non-academics. I help when I can, though it is clear to me that sometimes people are just fishing for pro bono representation. I also get a fairly frequent stream of emails from people doing academic research asking about leads on election law topics. Those are perfectly appropriate and welcome, especially on esoteric topics that are hard to track down.
But every once and a while I get e-mails like this one, that just arrived (it was in bold print, original emphasis):

I am doing a report for a college course-
Would like to elicit your opinion, thank you in advance for a brief and timely reply.
All feed back welcome-eg: your personal opinion, websites to visit or others to communicate with.
My question:
Should all citizens be REQUIRED BY LAW to vote in an election.

Now I have written an article on this subject (“Voting Without Law?” 144 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 2135 (1996)) and have a great deal to say about it. But this strikes me that emailing professors in the field for their opinions is not the right way to do research. Even a google search for compulsory voting would yield plenty of leads to get started with such research. See also this NY Times article on emails that professors now receive.