diff --git a/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/golden_data/golden_summary_report.csv b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/golden_data/golden_summary_report.csv
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9a4235850c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/golden_data/golden_summary_report.csv
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+"MinDate","StatVar","observationPeriods","Units","ScalingFactors","MeasurementMethods","NumPlaces"
+"1900","Count_Person","[P1Y]","[]","[]","[CensusPEPSurvey]","23057"
diff --git a/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/manifest.json b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/manifest.json
index 3f1cef3508..7655d3c516 100644
--- a/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/manifest.json
+++ b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/manifest.json
@@ -20,7 +20,8 @@
                     "cleaned_csv": "output_files/usa_annual_population.csv"
                 }
             ],
-            "cron_schedule": "0 10 * * 2"
+            "cron_schedule": "0 10 * * 2",
+            "validation_config_file": "validation_config.json"
         }
     ]
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/preprocess.py b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/preprocess.py
index 53027a3de2..09841b2062 100644
--- a/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/preprocess.py
+++ b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/preprocess.py
@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ def _load_data_df(path: str,
     elif file_format.lower() == "txt":
         data_df = pd.read_table(path,
                                 index_col=False,
-                                delim_whitespace=True,
+                                sep=r'\s+',
                                 engine='python',
                                 header=header,
                                 skiprows=skip_rows)
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ def _geo_id(val: pd.Series) -> str:
         str: State/County GeoId
     """
     res = "geoId/"
-    state, county = val[0], val[1]
+    state, county = val.iloc[0], val.iloc[1]
     if county == "000":
         return res + state
     return res + state + county
diff --git a/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/validation_config.json b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/validation_config.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..791c40c55e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/us_census/pep/annual_population/validation_config.json
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+{
+    "schema_version": "1.0",
+    "rules": [
+        {
+            "rule_id": "check_deleted_records_percent",
+            "description": "Checks that the percentage of deleted points is within the threshold.",
+            "validator": "DELETED_RECORDS_PERCENT",
+            "params": {
+                "threshold": 0.1
+            }
+        },
+        {
+            "rule_id": "check_goldens_summary_report",
+            "validator": "GOLDENS_CHECK",
+            "params": {
+                "golden_files": "../../../../golden_data/golden_summary_report.csv"
+            }
+        }
+    ]
+}