sendToURL without passing data or variables

programming flash
1

I’m working on an interactive quiz where the user’s responses will be incremented to a poll in a CMS. I have a url that automatically increments the answer choice in a poll, so I would like to use sendToURL to call the url without actually passing any data or variables. It seems to work with navigateToURL, but that opens a blank window in the browser (a complete nuisance every time you answer a quiz question).

Here is the navigateToURL code that increments the poll successfully, but opens the unwanted browser window

        var url:String = "[URL GOES HERE](http://polls.clickability.com/polls?pid=)"; 
        var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url); 
        try {
            navigateToURL(request);
        } catch (e:Error) {
            trace("Navigate to URL failed", e.message); 
        }

Here is the URLRequestMethod.POST code that increments the poll, but throws an error and distrupts other things because I’m feeding it a dummy variable.

        var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables("name=Franklin");
        var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
        request.url = "URL GOES HERE";
        request.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
        request.data = variables;
        var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
        loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES;
        loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandler);
        try
        {
            loader.load(request);
        }
        catch (error:Error)
        {
            trace("Unable to load URL");
        }

        function completeHandler(event:Event):void
        {
            trace(event.target.data.welcomeMessage);
        }

Suggestions? I tried replacing “navigateToURL” in the first option to sendToURL and it wasn’t incrementing the poll.