PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Rhode Island Republican Party is joining Hawai'i Republicans in asking the Federal Elections Commission to investigate donations that Secretary of State Matt Brown's Senate campaign received from three state Democratic parties.

Republican Chairwoman Patricia Morgan signed the complaint yesterday afternoon and mailed it overnight to the FEC.

Brown, who is running for the seat held by Republican Lincoln Chafee, received $25,000 in donations from state Democratic parties in Hawai'i, Massachusetts and Maine late last year. Days later, four Brown supporters — at his request — gave those parties a total of $30,000.

The Republicans' complaint accuses Brown's campaign of laundering money through Democratic parties in the three states to skirt federal elections laws that limit individual donations to campaigns to $4,200.

"This was planned and coordinated, and it was planned so they could get around federal law," Morgan said.

Brown has said that he did nothing illegal: His campaign's field director merely asked the parties for a donation and offered to help them fundraise in return. His spokesman, Matt Burgess, said yesterday the Republicans' complaint is just the parties playing politics.

Once the FEC receives a complaint, it contacts the people and organizations named and asks them to respond within 15 days. Then the commissioners vote on whether to open an investigation.

Hawai'i Republicans allege the Hawaii Democratic Party stood to gain $1,000 in an arrangement where the party contributed $5,000 to Brown's campaign in exchange for a $6,000 donation from a Brown supporter who had reached his spending limit under campaign laws.

The Hawaii Democratic Party's treasurer told The Associated Press earlier this month that the party and Brown's campaign had made a deal in which the party would donate to Brown in return for money from his supporters. She later said no deal was made.

Morgan said that Brown, as Rhode Island's top elections official, should have known the arrangement was not appropriate and that his response — that he adhered to the letter of the law — was inadequate.

"This is not just routine child's play, 'Aw, shucks.' It's serious," Morgan said.

Morgan talked to her counterparts in Hawai'i, Massachusetts and Maine about filing a complaint before she left last week to monitor elections in the Ukraine and decided to sign Hawai'i's letter to the FEC when she returned yesterday.