"Hillary and Trump have received the lion's share of attention in media, social media, and such. Google searches SHOULD show them prominently."

I'm not sure I agree with this.

An alternative is easy to conceive, that all candidates that meet some external criteria (such as being on a ballot) are randomized to be favored equally in results.

I'm not convinced that it's inherently better to favor candidates with a lot of media coverage over just equally favoring them all. Sure, that's how it works now, but that doesn't mean it should be that way. There is a choice to make.