  We address the quantum statistics of electrons created in the low-energy
edge-state Hilbert space sector of incompressible fractional quantum Hall
states, considering the possibility that they may not satisfy Fermi statistics.
We argue that this property is not a priori obvious, and present numerical
evidence based on finite-size exact-diagonalization calculations that it does
not hold in general. We discuss different possible forms for the expression for
the electron creation operator in terms of edge boson fields and show that none
are consistent with our numerical results on finite-size filling-factor-2/5
states with short-range electron-electron interactions. Finally, we discuss the
current body of experimental results on tunneling into quantum Hall edges in
the context of this result.
