Sorry, you're just wrong here. The article references early and provisional ballots, not absentee ballots, and the number listed (280,000) is state-wide, not just in the AZ05 district. I'm sure absentee ballots remain to be counted, but I'm just as sure that there's not a congressional district in the 49 states not-named Oregon that has ever had 100,000 mail in ballots.
Early ballots are absentee ballots because we voted early.
They are absentee (early) ballots and provisional ballots, please allow those from AZ to explain to you what the dynamics are, and oh by the way, I heard Hayworth on radio claim it about 10-15 different times when they kept playing the clip over and over, so you stand corrected. Not that he's going to definitely win, but that we have a ton of absentee(early, mail-in) ballots.