I've done the same thing, @KatSchramm for elections to my Academic Senate! I never figured out the multiple candidate challenge until I thought about your question, however. How about using the Multiple Dropdown question type? It would require typing the names of the candidates for each of the dropdown options, and you'd have to keep that in mind to make sure not to double-count those ballots where the student selected the same name twice. That's possible when looking at the downloaded Student Analysis report.
I created a silent video showing what this would like if the electors in the presidential election of 1800 here in the U.S. were using Canvas to cast their votes: