One of the proposed reforms to the electoral college system is appotion electoral votes according to how the popular vote in that state ended up, as opposed to the (mostly) winner take all system we have today.
If the 2000 election were held under this system, the result would have been very close, with Bush leading Gore and Nader 263/262/13.
The methodology I employed is one simlar to the method used to apportion the number of representatives per state based on the census results. I took the total number of votes cast in the state and divided it by the number of electoral votes. For example, in Michigan, which has 18 electoral votes and in which 4232501 votes were cast, each electoral vote can be considered to "cost" 235139 popular votes. Bush, with 1953139 votes, has enough votes to "buy" 8 electoral votes, and still has 72027 popular votes in "change". Gore, at 2170418 popular votges, "buys" 9 electoral votes with 54168 popular votes left. None of the other candidates has enough for one electoral vote, but Nader had a total of 84165 popular votes. Now, only 17 electoral votes have been apportioned, but Michigan gets to apportion 18. The extra EV goes to the candidate with the highest number of popular votes that have not been used to "buy" an electoral vote. In Michigan, this vote would go to Nader, whose 84165 total votes is more than either Bush or Gore have left after they have already "spent" the bulk of their votes on the first 17 electoral votes. Thus, Michigan gets apportioned 8 for Bush, 9 for Gore, 1 for Nader.
In some cases, more than one extra vote would be left over after all the candidates have "bought" all the electoral votes that they could. In California, after Bush, Gore and Nader have "bought" 22, 28 and 2 electoral votes respectively, only 52 of the 54 electoral votes would have been apportioned. At this point, we rank the candidates based on how many votes each candidate now has in "change", and the order is Gore, Bush, Browne, Buchanan, Phillips, Nader, Hagelin. Thus, one electoral vote each goes to Gore and Bush. The total apportionment for California is 23 for Bush, 29 for Gore, 2 for Nader.
By applying this methodology to the entire country, the results are as follows:
BUSH GORE NADER
AL 5 4 0
AK 2 1 0
AZ 4 4 0
AR 3 3 0
CA 23 29 2
CO 4 3 1
CT 3 5 0
DE 1 2 0
DC 0 3 0
FL 12 12 1
GA 7 6 0
HI 2 2 0
ID 3 1 0
IL 9 12 1
IN 7 5 0
IA 3 4 0
KS 4 2 0
KY 5 3 0
LA 5 4 0
ME 2 2 0
MD 4 6 0
MA 4 7 1
MI 8 9 1
MN 5 5 0
MS 4 3 0
MO 6 5 0
MT 2 1 0
NE 3 2 0
NV 2 2 0
NH 2 2 0
NJ 6 8 1
NM 2 3 0
NY 12 20 1
NC 8 6 0
ND 2 1 0
OH 10 10 1
OK 5 3 0
OR 3 3 1
PA 11 12 0
RI 1 3 0
SC 5 3 0
SD 2 1 0
TN 6 5 0
TX 19 12 1
UT 4 1 0
VT 1 2 0
VA 7 6 0
WA 5 6 0
WV 3 2 0
WI 5 5 1
WY 2 1 0
TOTAL 263 262 13
None of the candidates makes it to 270 EV for a majority. So one of two things happens: the election gets thrown to the House (where, presumably, Bush wins) or Nader's electors become faithless electors and throw their support to Gore (what are the odds of that?).