By JOHN MCLOUGHLIN

TROY, N.Y. -- More developments in the Battle of the Ballot Box in Rensselaer County.

A 24-year-old Schenectady man, who admits to having a long criminal record, says he discovered only last week that he is a candidate for the Rensselaer County Legislature on the Working Families Party line.

Kevin Gervasio says his brother told him that he was placed on the primary ballot last month at the behest of Troy DPW Commissioner Bob Mirch and Gervasio wound up winning, although he did not know  it at the time.

Gervasio says he has been arrested "thirty or forty times" and he denies that his brother, Keith Abbott, who works for Mirch, told him he was running.

Gervasio says he was living in North Carolina until July and was never asked if he wanted to run.

Democrats, who are under scrutiny for alleged abuses of the absentee ballot system, say they will ask a special prosecutor looking into the absentees to now take a look at Mirch and the case of the "criminal candidate."