The Federal Election Commission is auditing the Democratic Party of Hawaii after flagging multiple discrepancies with the party’s federal campaign finance reports during the 2012 election cycle.

The commission voted in September to undertake the probe, and auditors are still gathering information from the party, sources familiar with the process say. The commission determined after an internal review of the party’s reports that the party failed to meet threshold requirements for compliance with federal campaign finance law.

The FEC sent the party at least 16 letters in 2012 and 2013 raising questions about or identifying errors with the party’s 2012 disclosure reports, prompting the party to file a stream of amended reports through March.

As part of the audit, the FEC asked the party for source documents for campaign contributions, invoices for all spending activity, documentation for loans, copies of fundraising materials, scripts for phone banks, and contracts and invoices for all media advertising.

In the party’s year-end disclosure report for 2012, which was amended twice after an inquiry from the FEC, the party reported spending more than $895,250.

Jane Sugimura, the party’s former treasurer, was responsible for the 2012 reports. Dante Carpenter was the party’s chairman at the time.

Debi Hartmann was the party’s executive director. Brian Schatz — then the lieutenant governor, now a U.S. senator — and Andy Winer — then a Democratic strategist, now Schatz’s chief of staff — directed the party’s coordinated campaign and get-out-the-vote drive.

A spokeswoman for the FEC in Washington, D.C., said the agency does not comment on ongoing audits. The FEC notified the party of the audit in an October letter to Sugimura that also described the financial records required for audit fieldwork. A copy of the letter was provided to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser by a source who requested confidentiality.

“It’s all copacetic,” Carpenter said of the party’s finances in 2012. “Nothing is illegal, immoral or unethical in that regard.”

The party’s coordinated campaign that year was designed to help all Demo-crats on the ballot benefit from Hawaii-born President Barack Obama being on the top of the ticket for re-election. But much of the urgency was behind then-U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, who defeated former Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, for U.S. Senate.

After the election, Winer, who was paid $18,000 in consulting fees by the party and who had also served as a volunteer adviser to Hirono’s campaign, said the party’s get-out-the-vote strategy identified 70,000 infrequent voters statewide who might consider Hirono. He described it at the time as “probably the most coordinated and focused get-out-the-vote campaign that we’ve ever had.”

The FEC previously audited the party over disclosure reports from the 2002 election cycle, also when Sugimura was the party’s treasurer. The commission publicly issued its findings in 2004, concluding that the party had received prohibited contributions from political action committees, accepted contributions that exceeded limitations, and misstated or failed to properly disclose financial activity.

The FEC eventually issued a $22,000 civil penalty on the party.