State Republican Party leaders are asking the State Board of Elections to investigate whether North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue violated campaign contribution rules during the 2008 election cycle.

NCGOP Chairman Tom Fetzer said the Perdue Committee did not report 17 flights on private planes to the board.

"We feel like the violations admitted to by Gov. Perdue are very similar if not identical to the very ones that the State Board of Elections is investigating with former (Gov. Mike Easley)," Fetzer said during a press conference Thursday afternoon.

Gov. Perdue is traveling outside the country and her spokesperson referred NBC 17 to the North Carolina Democratic Party.

"The partisan allegations made today by the Republican Party are completely without merit," N.C. Democratic Party Executive Director Andrew Whalen said in a press release. "They are nothing more than the same tired political games we've come to expect from them."

Former Gov. Easley is under investigation for allegedly misusing state funds for flights.