election: keepalive shouldn't exit early

[rleungx]

What problem does this PR solve?

Issue Number: Close #7700

What is changed and how does it work?

Check List

Tests

• Unit test

Release note

None.

[ti-chi-bot]

Skipping CI for Draft Pull Request.
If you want CI signal for your change, please convert it to an actual PR.
You can still manually trigger a test run with /test all

[codecov]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests ✅

Project coverage is 76.29%. Comparing base (5999d64) to head (b4bd7eb).
Report is 14 commits behind head on master.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #8960      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   76.22%   76.29%   +0.06%     
==========================================
  Files         464      464              
  Lines       70516    70515       -1     
==========================================
+ Hits        53754    53800      +46     
+ Misses      13407    13364      -43     
+ Partials     3355     3351       -4     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	76.29% <ø> (+0.06%)	⬆️

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[ti-chi-bot]

[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is APPROVED

This pull-request has been approved by: JmPotato

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[ti-chi-bot]

[LGTM Timeline notifier]

Timeline:

• 2025-01-15 04:37:18.922144132 +0000 UTC m=+93310.377190280: ☑️ agreed by JmPotato.

[rleungx]

/hold