Specifying a doctype prevents the browser from switching to quirks mode, which can cause your page to render in unexpected ways.
How the Lighthouse doctype audit fails
Lighthouse flags pages without the <!DOCTYPE html>
declaration:
How to add a doctype declaration
Add the <!DOCTYPE html>
declaration to the top of your HTML document:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
…
See MDN's Doctype page for more information.