In what may have been his final campaign for public office, former congressman and secretary of state Ken Hechler said Tuesday he was deeply disappointed by Saturday's U.S. Senate special primary election.

Hechler, who turns 96 this month, said he was disappointed by the extremely low voter turnout, as well as the lack of support from environmentalists for his campaign.

"There was only a 12 percent turnout, which is outrageously low," said Hechler, who was the state's chief elections officer from 1985 to 2001.

"A lot of people obviously did not care to vote," he added. "I don't know how to analyze it. I just think it's terrible, that's all."

Hechler finished a distant second in the Democratic primary to Gov. Joe Manchin, with 16,114 votes (17 percent) to Manchin's 67,380 votes (73 percent). Former two-term state legislator Sheirl Fletcher finished third, with 9,084 votes, or 10 percent.

When he announced his candidacy for the special election to fill Sen. Robert C. Byrd's unexpired term in July, Hechler said his campaign would be a referendum against mountaintop removal mining.

"The response I got all over the state, and all sides of the state, was enthusiastic," Hechler said of his anti-mountaintop-removal campaign.

"That enthusiasm obviously did not translate into votes, and that's unfortunate," he said.

"I don't think that really represents the true feeling of the people of the state," Hechler added. "I think a lot of people were reluctant to vote for me because of my age."

Meanwhile, Hechler said he is turning his attention to completing a book he's writing on the history of coal mine health and safety legislation.

As a congressman, Hechler was the principal author of the federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969.

He said he's also looking for an author to help complete his biography, which has been a work in progress with different writers over the past several years.

Reach Phil Kabler at ph...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1220.