You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Elections" snippet="...fficient number of candidates for the election. The term &amp;quot;sufficient&amp;quot; here &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; at least one more candidate than there are vacancies. This canvas may be li&#10;" size="6871" wordcount="1123" timestamp="2022-07-11T20:26:55Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="SOS 2009" snippet="..., and all pricing will reflect the 20% member discount. Members of Orders [&lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; [[Sub-Groups]]] will have access to restricted areas for those groups, whil&#10;" size="15200" wordcount="2566" timestamp="2022-03-14T00:31:42Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="Nominating Committee" snippet="...if it should not have a sufficient number of candidates. (Sufficient here &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; one more than the number of vacancies.)&#10;" size="5676" wordcount="921" timestamp="2023-02-12T20:06:56Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="SOS 2013" snippet=":&amp;quot;The true &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&#10;" size="13498" wordcount="2310" timestamp="2022-03-14T00:30:10Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>