Half of U.S. voters (50%) say the recent wave of bank failures was triggered by laws that weren’t strict enough as opposed to bankers breaking the law.

But 37% say laws were broken, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Thirteen percent (13%) are undecided.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of investors say it is more likely that the bank failures were due to laws not being strict enough, compared to 43% of non-investors.

While conservatives are evenly divided over whether laws were broken or not strict enough, 56% of moderates and 58% of liberals take the latter position.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters also believe that it is Very Likely that large banks that have recently failed misrepresented their financial condition to shareholders, government regulators and others.

Another 24% think such misrepresentation is at least somewhat likely. Just three percent (3%) say it is not at all likely.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of women say misrepresentation is Very Likely, compared to 56% of men.

Democrats and unaffiliated voters are slightly more suspicious of misrepresentation than Republicans.

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Twenty-two banks have failed so far this year, with more likely to follow. The FDIC raised the number of problem banks to 171 in the third quarter, up from 117 the previous quarter.

The Rasmussen Consumer and Investor indexes, both of which measure confidence in the economy, climbed modestly today but still hover around record lows. Overall, confidence has fallen 46% since the beginning of 2007.

Three-out-of-four voters (76%) say a chief executive officer who knew his bank was misrepresenting its financial condition and did nothing to correct it should go to jail. Only nine percent (9%) say the CEO should not go to jail, while 16% are undecided.

In July, two months before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers brought Wall Street’s troubles home to Main Street, 68% of Americans were confident in the stability of the U.S. banking system, even as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said more banks in this country were likely to fail.

New numbers on Paulson’s performance will be released at 2 pm Eastern today.

By mid-September, 60% of Americans said the U.S. economy was not fundamentally sound.

A week before the election, voters were closely divided over whether the government’s increased involvement in private banks and the economy was good for them.

Interestingly, more self-identified political moderates (81%) think bank CEOs should be jailed if they were aware of misrepresentation and did not correct it than conservatives (73%) and liberals (74%).

Eighty-one percent (81%) of government employees also favor sending CEOs to jail for deliberate misrepresentation of their bank’s financial condition, higher by several points than among workers in the private sector and those who have retired.

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