The Independent Party is ballot-qualified in New Mexico. It polled over one-half of 1% of the presidential vote in New Mexico in 2008 for its nominee, Ralph Nader. Therefore, it remained ballot-qualified through the 2012 election.

The Independent Party is about to decide whether to change its name to the Justice Party. That would save the Justice Party the expense of doing its own petition drive in New Mexico. New Mexico already has a precedent that ballot-qualified parties may change their names. In 1979 it let the Prohibition Party change its name to the National Statesman Party. The Prohibition Party had been continuously ballot-qualified in New Mexico since 1976, when that name change was approved.