HONOLULU (AP) – Hawaii Republicans want the Federal Elections Commission to look into Democratic campaign contributions in Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts, all involving the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Rhode Island.

The Hawaii Republican Party scheduled a news conference later Wednesday to announce the filing of the complaint and was seeking the support of GOP organizations in the other three states involved.

Republicans allege that the Hawaii Democratic Party stood to gain $1,000 in a tit-for-tat arrangement where the party contributed $5,000 to Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown’s campaign in exchange for a $6,000 donation from a Brown supporter who had reached his spending limit under campaign laws.

The complaint alleges that similar arrangements were made to funnel contributions to the Rhode Island candidate from Maine and Massachusetts.

The parties in the three states sent a total of $25,000 in donations to Brown, and then they received a total of $30,000 a few days later in the form of private donations from others, including businessman Richard Bready, who had exceeded his legal limit for contributing to the Brown campaign.

Hawaii Democrats have denied any wrongdoing but acknowledge they made a mistake in contributing money to a primary election campaign in another state. The Democrats have returned the contributions from Bready and others and are getting their contribution back from the Brown campaign.

Brown has been running on a clean government platform against former Democratic Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse for a seat the Democrats believe they have a chance of taking from the GOP. They are vying to unseat Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who is challenged in the GOP primary by Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey.

The complaint being filed Wednesday alleges that Brown’s campaign broke campaign finance laws by routing money through state parties to avoid contribution limits, said Keith Nakano, executive director of the Hawaii Republican Party.

Federal election laws prohibit organizations from passing on contributions in someone else’s name, and they also disallow money exchanges that are made in order to avoid campaign donation limits on individuals.

Brown acknowledged that he personally asked supporters to give money to the three state Democratic parties that contributed to his Senate campaign, but denied ever making a deal to illegally funnel donations to his campaign.

Brickwood Galuteria, chairman of the Hawaii Democratic Party, repeated on Tuesday that the party did nothing wrong.