Election season is NOT upon us. That makes this the perfect time to register to vote—if you’re not already registered. It is also the perfect time to help others register to vote.

Sure, you can join the League of Women Voters — a cool 95-year-old institution dedicated to signing up new and nontraditional votes, such as new US citizens. But as I learned, voter registration can be a DIY project.

I had a research center in an inner-city community. It was a very cool place, but that’s another story. No, today I want to talk about giving back to the community. I was trying to figure out what contribution I could make that people would want. We posted a sign in our window that said Voter Registration. There was no upcoming election, but if someone wandered by and thought ‘Yes, I need to do that,’ we were ready.

Open Voter Registration and they will come. All I did was print off voter registration forms. People filled them out and we mailed them in. That’s it. Print off forms and bring them to your office, the store or restaurant where you work, your house of worship, a construction site (that includes you Habitat for Humanity volunteers), a sporting event. Take them anywhere!

While many states offer the possibility of filling out the forms online, not all do. Take Mississippi for example. They require paper forms to be mailed in. This is their form. Also there is nothing quite like having a piece of paper in your hot little hand and just doing it.

Don’t know if you’re already registered to vote? Go to Headcount and find out. You can also download the voter registration forms for every state.