ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A surge in early voting this fall featured long lines and short tempers outside the St. Louis County Board of Elections voting site on Monday morning.
5 On Your Side cameras were there at the exits to survey voters leaving when a loud, prolonged outburst near the entrance raised questions about controversial claims in anti-abortion campaign materials and electioneering limits at the polls.
"I love this country and you don't have the right to manipulate people as they're in line trying to vote," Jeff Rickermann said to a woman who was passing out pieces of paper to voters who stood toward the middle of the line that stretched out the door.
"Ok, the law says 25 feet from the door," Julie Leber quietly replied.
Their tense confrontation, which lasted for at least 15 minutes, highlighted the passionate disagreements in the push to overturn the most restrictive ban on abortion in the nation.
"You don't need [to be] manipulating people while they're trying to do their legal right to vote without disrupting people, and you're disrupting people," Rickermann shouted.
Leber asked, "Can you tell me why you're annoyed with me?"
"Because I don't believe in what you're believing in," he said.
All the commotion caught the attention of Koly Parisi as she was walking in the door to pay her property taxes.
"Amendment Three was not something that I actually understood in great detail, but I am actually reading the literature here," she said, adding that she was alarmed by some of the inflammatory claims she read in the anti-abortion materials.
Leber read from her pamphlet as she rattled off some of her concerns with Amendment Three.
"Anyone who assists cannot be held liable or accountable for any harm that's done," she claimed, echoing some Republican criticism that reversing the abortion ban would also eliminate medical malpractice protections for pregnant mothers.
When Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R-Missouri) attempted to make that same argument in a legal battle over the fair ballot language, courts ruled his claim was "inaccurate" and that "it has no such effect."
Ashcroft's claim was "unfair, inaccurate, insufficient, and misleading," the judge wrote. "It is contrary to the language of the Amendment and will give voters the mistaken impression that the Amendment will allow physicians to perform abortions negligently or criminally."
The same court ruling struck down a number of other inflammatory claims found in the materials Leber circulated to voters at the polling site.
For example, one claim said legal abortions could occur during all nine months of a pregnancy, or even in the NICU after birth, in cases when the mother was merely "feeling stressed."
Courts held a different view of the impact of Amendment 3.
"To say that the Amendment enshrines the right of abortion at any time of pregnancy misleads voters into believing that no regulation of abortion will be allowed at any stage of pregnancy even post-fetal viability, which is not a probable effect of the measure," the court ruling said.
Another claim in Leber's campaign materials suggested anyone could perform a legal abortion under Amendment 3, regardless of their medical training.
"Subsection 3 clearly allows the state to impose regulations to protect the health and safety of the patient," the court ruling clarified.
The contradictions between the campaign materials and the court's ruling confused Parisi, who described herself as pro-life.
"Well, if this is not accurate, then I'm not understanding how this literature was able to be distributed," she said.
"If anyone lied to me, it would frustrate me," Parisi said. "We should not accept anybody's lies regardless of their affiliation. I just am really an advocate for that unborn child. That unborn child doesn't have a voice and we should all be concerned of that."
A few moments before, she openly clashed with two other Brentwood women who walked out of the polling site proudly displaying their support for Vice President Kamala Harris in her race against former President Donald Trump.
"We're making history," Regina Reed-Henderson said alongside her 84-year-old mother Elaine Reed, who both sported 'I Voted' stickers.
How does the elder Reed feel about former President Donald Trump?
"I don't have any feelings for Donald Trump," she replied.
"Good answer, Mom," her daughter chimed in.
"Donald Trump is going to save our country, ma'am" Parisi interjected.
"Well, let him save yours," Reed shot back.
What does she see at stake in this election?
"Freedom. Democracy. That everybody has the same rights," she said.
Reed-Henderson saw news cameras talking with voters and came over to express her views on Amendment 3.
"No one should be telling us what to do with our bodies," she said.
Parisi interrupted the interview.
"Ma'am, did you read Amendment 3?"
"No, ma'am, don't talk to me," Reed-Henderson retorted. "You can't convince me I'm an educated woman. I'm an informed voter."
"Oh no, it says right here: 'Abortions all nine months for any reasons,'" Parisi exclaimed.
"And that's fine. But you don't have a right to tell someone what to do," Reed-Henderson told her.
"Why in the world would you abort an unborn child?" Parisi pressed on.
"That's her right," Reed-Henderson said. "You run you. You don't run someone else."
"That's craziness," Parisi reacted.
"Well, then you tell your daughter that," Reed-Henderson argued.
Another man who identified himself only by his first name and hometown said the abortion issue was his top priority.
"Women's rights," Mark from Overland said. "A woman's right to choose for abortion. That's the biggest one."
He was less enthusiastic about the choices at the top of the ticket.
"I feel there's two totally unqualified people running," Mark said, adding that he ultimately chose between the lesser of two evils.
"I cannot go with Trump," he said. "He's just... As far as I'm concerned, he's a criminal. I mean, he's bankrupted so many small businesses when they were working for him that it's a sin. I mean, he's just... he's just a crook all the way through."
He explained why he still voted for Harris, despite his concerns.
"I would like a different opponent. I mean, she seems like a lot of fluff. She just goes on smiling everywhere and spouting the same things without any reason or logic behind them," he said. "Everybody in my family is a big fan, but to me it's just another mouth moving."
Another voter from Olivette was far more optimistic after casting her ballot for the first time as an American citizen.
"I'm so excited to exercise my Constitutional right," Mary Barclay said. "Most of the questions were important to me, according to my Constitutional right. Like the President, the Governor, the Representative and the Senator."
She described her years-long journey moving to St. Louis from Liberia in West Africa, her application for permanent residency, and then ultimately her quest to become a legal citizen.
"In American history, I haven't seen a lady becoming a president. But maybe it might work this time around," she said.
Once the campaign season is over, election officials said they hope lawmakers will take up their longstanding recommendations to shield voters from harassment or aggressive campaigning so close to polling sites. However, so far in Missouri, politicians have shown very little interest in taking those ideas, and have opted to leave in place the state's current lax electioneering laws allow vigorous campaigning right up until the last 25 feet before you walk inside the door.
"I think it needs to be 50 feet or 100 feet away," Rickermann said.
"Everybody that's in here has the right to believe what they believe in," Rickermann said. "It's OK for her to believe in what she wants to believe in. But she needs to be across the street."