The Independence Party is a political party in the U.S. state of New York. The party was founded in 1991 by Dr. Gordon Black, Tom Golisano, and Laureen Oliver from Rochester, New York, and acquired ballot status in 1994. They lost their ballot status in 2020 under a change in the New York state election law that required at least 130,000 votes on the party line every two years. Although often associated with Ross Perot, as the party came to prominence in the wake of Perot's 1992 presidential campaign, it was created prior to Perot's run. In 2020, it affiliated with the Alliance Party, but disaffiliated in 2021. It used to have one elected member of the New York State Assembly, Fred Thiele, until Thiele switched his party affiliation to the Democratic Party in 2022. History Founding The Independence Party was founded in 1991 by a Rochester, New York-based, group, later merging for a time with the Bronx-based Independent Fusion Party to form the Independence Fusion Party. The Bronx-based Independent Fusion Party had earlier been active in endorsing Rudy Giuliani in the 1989 mayoral election (and again in 1993), seeking to emulate the City Fusion Party of the Fiorello H. La Guardia era and taking the historic four-leaf clover as its symbol. The unexpectedly strong showing of Ross Perot in the 1992 U.S. presidential election raised the profile of political independents in the country and led to centrist political parties rising to prominence in many states. It first achieved ballot status in New York as the "Independence Fusion Party" in 1994, and after that election reverted to just the Independence Party again. The Independence Party was affiliated with the Reform Party of the United States, which was directly founded by Perot in 1995, and broke off from that party in 2000. Governor of New York In the elections for Governor of New York in 1994, 1998, and 2002, the Independence Party's candidate was businessman Tom Golisano, whose personal wealth enabled him to mount well-funded campaigns. In the 1994 election he finished 4th, and 3rd in the 1998 and 2002 elections, far ahead of all other candidates not running on the Democratic or Republican ballot lines. Because Golisano received more than 50,000 votes each time, the party was guaranteed an automatic ballot line for the following four years. It has enjoyed the 4th ballot line after the 1994 election, the third