PELHAM, Alabama – Wearing his holstered Smith & Wesson Sigma .380-caliber pistol on his brown leather belt, Robert Kennedy was determined to vote this morning in the primary runoff.

Despite a sign that stated "firearms prohibited in this facility" posted on the polling site's front door in Pelham, Kennedy walked inside and talked with election workers, received his ballot and voted without any challenges.

"I'm not going to surrender a right to exercise a right. Nobody should have to," Kennedy, a founding member of gun-rights group BamaCarry, said outside the annex building for the First Baptist Church of Pelham after voting.

The issue of openly carrying a firearm to election sites has been debated in recent weeks following the June 3 primary, when there were a handful of reports of voters in Alabama wearing holstered pistols to the polls, including three in Shelby County.

The debate flared up this morning between a poll worker and Eddie Fulmer, a founding member of BamaCarry, who was recording the confrontation inside the polling site on a camera. During the exchange, the poll worker said she would call police over the issue of guns displayed inside the election site.

After Kennedy cast his ballot at about 9:45 a.m. with four other members of BamaCarry with him inside the polling site, the group left the building and remained outside the front entrance and talked about their experience.

About five minutes later, two Pelham police officers in separate patrol vehicles arrived on scene followed by at least five other police cars within a couple of minutes. One officer spoke with the poll worker before approaching Kennedy and his group to ask them to leave the area.

"I'm just asking you politely to respect their wishes," Pelham Police Officer Scott Duffey told the group.

Kennedy and his group shook hands with the officers and talked with them in a friendly manner. Kennedy even passed out sheets of paper with gun-rights information to the officers.

"This is not about the gun. This is about the control and overreach of authority," Kennedy said outside the building after voting.

Kennedy and his colleagues have cited sections of Alabama law and the state Constitution pertaining to voting and protection of rights at the polls.

"My plan is to go in the polls and vote un-accosted" and do "exactly what the state law says and what the Constitution says," Kennedy said before entering the election site.

Kennedy wore a light-orange BamaCarry shirt and blue jeans with his holstered pistol as he entered the building with other members of the gun-rights group, all of whom wore pistols openly displayed on their belts.

Displaying his holster that had a sticker given to voters, Fulmer said he cast his ballot in Tuscaloosa County without any issue this morning.

"I think it went well for me, but when they engaged Eddie, that was uncalled for," Kennedy said, referring to the exchange between the poll worker and Fulmer inside the Pelham election site.

Before leaving, Kennedy asked poll workers seated at a table if he frightened any of them. One said she was not frightened but the group was acting "silly."

Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry last week said his agency would enforce a ban on guns at polling sites during today's election. When the BamaCarry group arrived at the Pelham polling site this morning, no law enforcement members were immediately present.

"We've got Shelby County Sheriff's (deputies) all over our BamaCarry Facebook page. They knew what we were going to do" today at the polls, Kennedy said.